Hospitality
Outsourced bookkeeping and fractional CFO support for craft breweries, restaurants, and hospitality businesses — so you can focus on your guests, not your books.
Overview
Pease Bell, CPAs is a Cleveland, Ohio-based firm serving restaurants, hotels, breweries, and hospitality operators across all 50 states. Hospitality is one of the toughest industries to run cleanly on paper: prime cost swings daily, tips and payroll create reporting exposure, and sales and occupancy tax vary by location. Our team works the way operators do — close to the numbers, fast on the close, and focused on the two costs that decide whether a location makes money. Whether you run one restaurant or fifty units, we give you clean books, comparable reporting, and a CPA who speaks the language of food, labor, and covers.
How we help restaurants & hospitality operators
Accounting, tax, and advisory built around how food and beverage businesses actually operate.
Outsourced accounting & bookkeeping
Daily sales reconciliation, POS and third-party delivery tie-outs, vendor payments, and monthly close so your books are current and your dashboards actually reflect the business.
Prime cost & margin analysis
We track food cost and labor together as prime cost, benchmark by daypart and menu category, and flag the line items eroding margin before they show up in the year-end.
Tip reporting & FICA tip credit
Compliant tip allocation, tipped-wage payroll support, and calculation of the FICA tip credit so you capture the employer credit you have already earned on reported tips.
Sales, use & occupancy tax
Multi-jurisdiction sales, use, and occupancy tax registration, filing, and nexus review as you add locations or delivery channels across state and local lines.
Multi-unit reporting & benchmarking
Consistent chart of accounts and unit-level P&Ls so you can compare stores side by side, spot outliers, and roll everything up for lenders and partners.
Tax planning & entity strategy
Entity structure, owner compensation, fixed-asset and buildout depreciation, and credits planning designed around the seasonality and reinvestment cycle of hospitality.
Contact Us
Tell us about your business and a member of our team will be in touch.
The pressures we help you manage
Hospitality margins live and die on a handful of numbers, and most of them move every week. We help you keep them visible and under control.
- ✓Prime cost creep — food and labor together can quietly climb past target before a monthly P&L ever catches it.
- ✓Tip compliance — tip reporting, tipped-wage rules, and the FICA tip credit are easy to get wrong and easy to leave money on.
- ✓Cash vs. profit — strong sales and tight cash at the same time is normal in hospitality; forecasting keeps you ahead of it.
- ✓Multi-state tax — every new location or delivery market can create sales, use, and occupancy tax obligations you didn't have before.
- ✓Expansion decisions — unit economics and financing need to be modeled before you sign the next lease, not after.
Why hospitality operators choose Pease Bell
We think in prime cost
We report the way operators run the business — food and labor as one number, tracked against target, unit by unit — not just a generic P&L that hides where margin is leaking.
Built for multi-unit growth
A consistent chart of accounts and unit-level reporting mean adding a location doesn't break your books. You get comparable numbers and clean roll-ups for lenders and partners.
Full service, boutique touch
As a Top 200 U.S. firm with 150+ professionals, we bring real tax and advisory depth — with a partner who actually knows your concepts and answers the phone.
Hospitality insights from our team
Practical guidance on restaurant accounting, tips, and tax changes that hit food and beverage operators.
- Restaurant accounting
A Guide to Restaurant AccountingFoundational guide: chart of accounts, food cost, payroll, and P&L for restaurant owners.
- Tax & compliance
OBBBA Act: Form 1099 Reporting ChangesNew 1099 thresholds under the OBBBA Act, relevant to vendor and contractor reporting.
- Outsourced accounting
Client Accounting ServicesOutsourced bookkeeping, close, and reporting for hospitality operators.
Restaurant & hospitality accounting FAQs
What is prime cost and why does it matter for restaurants?
Prime cost is your cost of goods sold plus total labor, and it's the single most important number in restaurant profitability. Most operators target prime cost around 55–65% of sales, though the right benchmark depends on your concept. Because food and labor move daily, we track them together and against target — not just once a month — so you can act before a bad week becomes a bad quarter.
What is the FICA tip credit and can my restaurant claim it?
The FICA tip credit is a federal income tax credit that reimburses employers for the Social Security and Medicare taxes they pay on employee tips above the minimum-wage level. If you have tipped employees who report their tips, you likely qualify. We calculate the credit as part of tax planning so you capture money you've already earned rather than leaving it on the table at year-end.
Do you handle tip reporting and tipped-wage payroll?
Yes. We support compliant tip reporting, tip allocation, and tipped-wage payroll, and we coordinate the data your payroll provider needs. Tips create both compliance exposure and a tax opportunity through the FICA tip credit, so getting the reporting right protects you on audit and maximizes the credit at the same time.
Can you support multi-unit and franchise operators?
Yes — multi-unit reporting is a core focus. We set up a consistent chart of accounts so every location reports the same way, produce unit-level P&Ls you can compare side by side, and roll results up for lenders, franchisors, and partners. That structure means adding a location doesn't break your books or your benchmarking.
How do you handle sales, use, and occupancy tax across states?
We manage multi-jurisdiction sales, use, and occupancy tax from registration through filing, and we review nexus as you add locations or delivery channels. Serving clients in all 50 states, we track where new obligations are triggered so expansion into a new market or delivery platform doesn't create a surprise tax liability.
Do you work with restaurants outside of Ohio?
Yes. Pease Bell is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, but we serve hospitality clients in all 50 states. Our reporting, tax, and advisory work is built to handle multi-state operators, so whether your restaurants are all in Ohio or spread across the country, we can support the full footprint from one firm.