Monthly Budget Review Checklist

Export the month's sales summary from Toast, Square for Restaurants, or whatever POS you run. Pull net sales, voids, comps, and discounts as separate lines — comp and void percentages above 2-3% of net sales are usually worth investigating before you trust the top-line number.

Break out the mix by food, beverage (split beer/wine/liquor), delivery (DoorDash, UberEats, Grubhub), and catering. A drop in beverage mix percentage usually points to a bartender, training, or upsell issue rather than a guest-count issue.

Compare brunch, lunch, dinner, and late-night against the prior month and the same month last year. Weather, local events, and one-off closures explain most swings; what's left is the signal you'll act on in the forecast step.

Pull COGS from MarginEdge or Restaurant365 — beginning inventory plus purchases minus ending inventory, divided by net food sales. Independent FSR targets typically land 28-32%; pizza and high-margin concepts run lower. If you're off target, the inventory variance section below will show whether it's purchasing, waste, or theft.

Use the 7shifts or Homebase export plus the payroll register from Gusto, ADP, or Toast Payroll. Include taxes and benefits in fully-loaded labor — leaving them out is how operators run a 'good' labor number on paper and miss the actual prime cost.

Add food cost plus labor cost percentages. Most full-service concepts target prime cost at or below 60-65%; QSR and fast-casual aim lower. If you're over, the recovery-plan branch below kicks in before forecast.

Match Sysco, US Foods, PFG, and Restaurant Depot invoices against the receiving sheets your kitchen signed at the door. Short cases and price-creep on staples (oil, chicken, produce) bury into food cost without a line-item check.

Pull gas, electric, water, and waste against the trailing twelve months. A sudden spike in water usage often flags a leak in the dish pit or ice machine; gas spikes flag pilot or hood issues. Rent CAM reconciliations show up in Q1 and Q3 — book them when received, not when paid.

Check effective card rate from the Toast or Square statement and the commission columns from DoorDash, UberEats, and Grubhub. Third-party delivery commissions of 25-30% on a 12% margin item are a money-loser disguised as revenue; flag the items where this is happening.

Counts done a week into the new month are useless — the walk-in has rolled. The chef or sous should have counted on the last day of the period using the par sheet. Confirm the count sheet is signed and entered into R365 or MarketMan.

Theoretical food cost from the recipe-costed sales mix minus actual food cost from the count. Variance under 1% is normal; 1-2% is your warning band; over 2% means waste, over-portioning, comp abuse, or theft.

Walk the top five variance items with the chef. Common drivers: protein over-portioning (no scale at the line), waste-log not maintained, comps not rung in correctly, or a back-door theft pattern. Document the root cause for each item so the next month's review has a baseline.

Pull the gross profit line from the QuickBooks or Restaurant365 P&L. Compare against the budgeted GP at the same sales volume — a GP miss at-or-above forecast sales is a cost problem; a GP miss at below-forecast sales is a sales problem. The fix is different.

Triggered when prime cost is over target. Pick the two or three highest-leverage moves: menu re-pricing on items with the worst contribution margin, schedule tightening on the soft daypart, vendor RFQ on the top three SKUs by spend. One owner, one deadline per action.

Check SBA loan, hood and walk-in equipment leases, and any merchant cash advance drafts cleared without NSF. A bounced lease payment trips a default clause faster than most operators expect; the lessor can pull the equipment.

Operating cash divided by the prior three-month average monthly expense gives you runway in months. Anything under two months is a flag — the slow months (typically January and February for FSR) will eat the cushion before sales recover.

If you carry an MCA or high-rate working capital loan, check current SBA 7(a) or local-bank LOC rates. Refinancing out of a daily-debit MCA into a term loan is often the single largest cash flow lever an independent operator has.

Most states require sales tax filed by the 20th of the following month. Reconcile the POS tax-collected line against the bank deposit before remitting — sales tax shortfalls are a personal-liability exposure for owners, not a corporate one.

Move the month's estimated income tax reserve into a separate account so it isn't available for operating draws. Federal quarterly estimates are due April 15, June 15, September 15, and January 15.

Pull the liquor license expiration and the ServSafe / TIPS rosters. An expired liquor license caught by ABC is an immediate suspension; an allergen-aware manager out-of-date in MA, IL, MI, NY, or RI is an automatic citation at the next health inspection.

Roll this month's actuals into the forecast model. If beverage mix is shifting up, your blended food cost target moves down; if you added a delivery channel, factor the commission drag into the budgeted line.

Mark the next month's local sports calendar, conventions, school schedules, and holidays against the staffing plan in 7shifts. The single biggest source of labor miss is a manager scheduling to last month's volume when next month has a known event.

Owner or director of operations reviews the package — sales, prime cost, variance, P&L, cash position — and signs off. Until this is locked, the next month's targets shouldn't be pushed to the GM and chef.