Restaurant accounting in Pakistan: a practical guide
A restaurant's profit is decided in three places — the recipe card, the rider's bag and the drawer. Most food businesses in Pakistan watch the third and guess the first two. Here is what the books actually need to capture: food cost percentage, the daily close across cash and COD, waste, staff meals, and the weekly numbers that keep a kitchen honest. For the counter side of the operation, see our restaurant POS page.
1. Food cost percentage: the number that runs the kitchen
Food cost percentage is the ingredient cost of a dish divided by its menu price. A half chicken karahi at Rs 1,250 that uses Rs 300 of chicken, Rs 110 of tomatoes, oil and spices, and a Rs 30 naan carries a food cost of about 35%. Most Pakistani restaurants aim for 28–35%.
The problem is drift. Chicken moves Rs 40 a kilo, tomatoes double in a week, and the printed menu price stays where it was. Nobody re-costs the dish, so a 35% item quietly becomes 42%. On Rs 80,000 of daily sales, a three-point drift is Rs 2,400 a day — roughly Rs 70,000 a month, which for many restaurants is the entire profit.
What the books need: a cost for every top-selling dish, recalculated whenever a major ingredient moves — and at minimum a monthly re-cost of the ten items that drive most of the revenue.
2. The daily close: counter, riders and platforms
A restaurant does not close one drawer; it closes three. Counter cash comes in through the day. Own-rider COD returns at 11pm in the rider's pocket. The foodpanda balance settles days later, minus commission.
Take an Rs 85,000 day: Rs 38,000 counter cash, Rs 12,000 on card and wallets, Rs 20,000 of rider COD and Rs 15,000 through foodpanda. The books record the full Rs 85,000 as sales, then track three different arrivals — the rider's Rs 20,000 tonight, and roughly Rs 11,000 from the platform next week after 25–30% commission. That commission is an expense line, not missing cash.
Rider reconciliation is its own ritual: deliveries out versus cash returned versus signed udhaar slips, per rider. A shortage seen per rider is a conversation; a shortage seen only per day is a mystery. The mechanics of tying the whole day together are in our day close routine.
3. Waste and staff meals: the quiet cost lines
Every kitchen produces waste: tomatoes gone soft, rice left in the degh, the plate sent back. Unrecorded, waste does not disappear — it hides inside food cost and makes ingredients look expensive.
Rs 3,000 a day of waste is Rs 90,000 a month. For a restaurant netting 10%, finding that leak is worth Rs 900,000 of new sales — and finding waste is almost always cheaper than finding customers.
Staff meals are the second quiet line. Twenty-five staff eating twice a day at Rs 250 of ingredient cost is Rs 12,500 daily — Rs 375,000 a month. A legitimate cost, but it must sit in the books as its own line; folded into food cost it makes the kitchen look worse than it is, and the real problem stays invisible.
4. Split payments and the Rs 400 still to come
Counter reality: a Rs 6,400 bill settles as Rs 4,000 cash, Rs 2,000 on JazzCash and Rs 400 'kal de den ge'. Each tender lands somewhere different — the wallet in a separate account, and the Rs 400 against a name, not a shrug.
Phoned-in orders for the office upstairs or the factory gate often run a weekly khata. That receivable is money earned but not collected, and it belongs in the books per customer. A running total in a diary only one person can read is how small debts become write-offs.
What the books need: a payment-method split at every close, and every partial amount parked against a name in a cashbook you can actually search.
5. What the books must capture every day
None of this needs restaurant-industry software. It needs six things recorded every day:
- Sales by channel — counter, takeaway, own riders, foodpanda — recorded separately
- Sales by tender — cash, card, JazzCash or EasyPaisa, udhaar
- Purchases by category — meat, vegetables, dry goods, packaging, gas
- Waste and staff meals as their own expense lines, not folded into food cost
- Rider-wise COD — delivered, returned, outstanding
- Supplier payables and customer khata balances, kept current
6. The weekly numbers that keep a kitchen honest
Daily totals tell you the shop was busy; weekly ratios tell you whether it was profitable. Food cost % on the top ten dishes, commission as a share of platform sales, waste as a share of purchases, and the khata's total and ageing — together they are the restaurant's real report card.
Here honesty matters more than software. SYEZPOS is a retail POS — what it does on a restaurant counter today is billing, stock and daily closing, laid out plainly in what a restaurant POS can do today. The accounting discipline above is what turns those records into numbers you can act on.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good food cost percentage for a restaurant in Pakistan?
Most Pakistani restaurants run 28–35% food cost. Above 40% the menu price or the portioning is wrong; consistently under 25% usually means portions guests will notice. Recalculate when major ingredient prices move — the number drifts even when nothing else changes.
How do I record foodpanda commission in my accounts?
Book the full order value as revenue and the commission as a separate expense line. Recording only the net deposit understates sales and hides what the platform actually costs — which matters when deciding whether the channel earns its keep.
Should staff meals go into the accounts?
Yes — as their own expense line. Left unrecorded they inflate food cost and make the kitchen look wasteful; recorded, they become a legitimate, visible cost that you can actually see and control.