Friends Coastal Restaurant has seen an increase in sales, or the same sales, almost every month since it opened in 2006. Richard Taubin came from the IT world, and had no restaurant experience. He and his former partner split ways recently, but Richard has a new partner, and Friends is trucking right along and doing great business. Here’s what Richard had to say about the importance of hiring a good CPA…

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I highly, highly recommend hiring a CPA, especially one who is close to the restaurant industry. They understand what percentages should be, as an average. Without breaching confidentiality, they can talk to you about what other restaurants do to combat certain cost structures that you have. Our CPA has been very instrumental in helping us cut costs, and in telling us what percentages should be. He recommends the financial applications that we should use, and helps us with reading P&L’s [profit and loss reports], and how to make adjustments. And that’s really helped us out quite a bit.

When you can work with CPAs on a daily basis, and have them help assure that budgets are aligned and cost controls are adhered to, it’s just as important to me as the food you put on the plate. Without controlling those costs, you don’t make money. Just as much as you would design a recipe for your food, you need to design a recipe for how you’re going to track and adjust for financial costs and profits.

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You’ll be able to hear more from Richard soon, when Restaurant Owners Uncorked is launched.

The Schedulefly Crew