Restaurant Controller

Controller Services for Restaurant Groups

One restaurant you can run by walking the floor. A group you run by the numbers — and the location that feels busy and the location that makes money are often not the same location. A controller keeps per-unit reporting honest and the group consolidated, so you manage on facts instead of vibes.

Prime cost per location, reviewed on a cadence

Prime cost — food plus labor — makes or breaks a restaurant, and in a group it has to be visible per location and often weekly, not buried in one consolidated monthly P&L. A controller stands up that reporting and reviews it, so one unit creeping on food cost or over-scheduling labor gets caught before it erases the profit of a unit doing everything right.

The consolidation matters too. Multi-unit groups need clean intercompany, standardized charts, and comparable P&Ls — the plumbing that lets you actually compare stores and roll them up without a week of spreadsheet surgery.

What a controller adds over a bookkeeper

A bookkeeper records the transactions. A controller makes them right and turns them into a reviewed package: per-unit P&Ls, weekly prime-cost reporting, a clean consolidation, and the KPIs a group runs on — food cost %, labor %, sales per seat.

This is the difference between owning your favorite restaurant several times and running a restaurant company. Standardized reporting is what makes the second one possible.

How Kaizen runs it

We sit on top of your bookkeeping — ours or yours — and run a documented monthly close on the same date every month, with weekly prime-cost reporting where you want it. POS data gets reconciled to the accounting so sales, deposits, and the ledger agree per unit.

Then the improvement part we're named for: each period the reporting tightens and the review catches more before it reaches you. Controller judgment without the salary or the eventual resignation.

What's included

Reviewed monthly financials with a documented, same-date close
Per-unit P&Ls and clean multi-unit consolidation
Weekly prime-cost reporting — food and labor
POS-to-books reconciliation per location

Restaurant KPI scorecard — food cost %, labor %, sales per seat
Vendor and food-cost trend review
Standardized reporting across units for clean comparisons
Oversight of your bookkeeper or bookkeeping team — a second set of senior eyes

New engagements usually begin with the 1-2-3 CFO™ Reset: Month 1 clean, per-location, and reconcile, Month 2 stand up prime-cost and unit P&Ls, Month 3 systems and a budget.

Pricing

$3,000–6,000/moscoped to units, volume, and reporting cadence · no contract

~$120K+/yrwhat a full-time controller costs fully loaded — a lot of covers to carry that

One hire, one riskan in-house controller who needs managing and takes your reporting with them when they leave

Team + reviewcontroller oversight plus a bookkeeping team and a close that doesn't wobble

Straight answers

We have a bookkeeper. Why a controller too?

A bookkeeper records; a controller stands up per-unit reporting, reviews prime cost, and consolidates the group. Many groups keep their bookkeeper and add us for oversight and the reporting cadence.

Can you report prime cost per location, weekly?

Yes — weekly, per unit, which is where the money is won or lost. Monthly consolidated P&Ls hide location-level problems until they're expensive.

Do you reconcile our POS?

Yes — sales and deposits from the POS get tied to the accounting per location, so the systems and the bank agree store by store.

We have one location. Overkill?

Usually, and we'll tell you. One well-run restaurant with clean books may just need good bookkeeping and a KPI report until there's a second unit to compare.

Free 20-minute books assessment

We'll show you the five things we'd fix first in your books — useful whether you hire us, hire someone, or do neither.

Talk to Sales

Or call us directly: +1 786 789 0969