Most small business P&Ls tell you nothing. Here is why.
QuickBooks gives you a generic chart of accounts, and almost nobody changes it. Your reports then come out correct and useless at the same time.
Everything lands in "Other"
The default accounts do not match how your business spends money. So half your spending goes into catch-all accounts. Your biggest line item ends up being one you cannot explain.
Your costs sit alongside your overhead
If your cost of goods and your operating expenses share the same accounts, you cannot calculate gross margin. Without gross margin, you cannot tell whether your prices work.
You cannot compare yourself to anyone
Every industry has published benchmarks. Your accounts have to match how your industry measures itself. Otherwise you cannot tell whether 31% is good or a serious problem.
Set this up once. It pays you back every month after that.
Your chart of accounts is the structure underneath every report you run. Build it correctly and every future report answers a real question. Build it badly and you spend years reading numbers that mean nothing. Most owners are doing exactly that right now.
Choose your industry.
Read every account below before you decide. We ask for your email when you download, so we can send you a copy and the import steps.
Restaurant & Bar
| No. | Account Name | Type | Detail Type |
|---|
The import takes about five minutes.
Download the CSV
Choose your industry above and download the file. Open it and delete any accounts you will never use. A shorter chart is a better chart.
Turn on account numbers
In QuickBooks Online, go to Settings → Account and Settings → Advanced → Chart of accounts. Turn on Enable account numbers.
Run the import
Go to Settings → Import Data → Chart of Accounts. Upload the file and map the columns. We named them to match what QuickBooks expects.
Merge, do not duplicate
If an account already holds transactions, merge it instead of creating a new one. If you create a new one, your history splits across two accounts and your reports get worse.
One warning before you start.
If you already have transaction history in QuickBooks, this import will not move any of it. Your old transactions stay in their old accounts. You end up with a good new structure and a year of data in the wrong accounts. That is worse than where you started.
Do it in this order. Import the new chart. Reclassify your historical transactions into it. Then reconcile. That middle step is the real work, and most people underestimate it. If you have more than a few months of history, have someone do it properly. That does not have to be us.
Or let us do the whole thing.
Most firms charge $500 to $1,500 to set up a chart of accounts. We do it for nothing during your free first month. We build it for your industry and move your history into it. At the end you get a real set of financial statements. If we don't find enough savings to cover month two, month two is free.
Claim My Free Month →No card. No contract. One 20-minute call tells you if we're a fit.