From independent restaurants and bars to craft breweries and catering operations, Beaufort's food and beverage scene runs on tight margins. We handle tipped payroll, COGS tracking, multi-POS reconciliation, and seasonal cash flow so you stay focused on the line, not the ledger.
No setup fees · Cancel anytime · Dedicated bookkeeper
Tides Bookkeeping serves restaurant, bar, and brewery owners across Beaufort County — including Beaufort and the surrounding communities of Port Royal, Bluffton, Hilton Head. Here's how we handle the books for food and beverage businesses in the Lowcountry.
Restaurants and bars across Beaufort run on razor-thin margins where the difference between profit and loss is food cost, labor cost, and whether your POS deposits match your bank account. Tides reconciles your POS system — Toast, Square, Clover, Aloha — against actual bank deposits every day, tracks COGS by category (food, beverage, paper goods), and keeps your labor costs visible by pay period so you can spot overages before they eat the month.
Tipped-staff payroll is one of the biggest bookkeeping challenges in food service — and it's where most generic bookkeepers fall short. Tip reporting, tip credits, tip pooling, overtime on tipped wages, and the employer's share of FICA on reported tips all need to be tracked correctly. We coordinate with your payroll provider to make sure your tip reporting is compliant and your payroll tax filings are accurate every quarter.
Beaufort's food and beverage scene isn't standing still. Whether you're opening a second location, expanding into catering, or building a following in Port Royal, Bluffton, Hilton Head, growth means more complexity — more POS terminals, more staff, more vendor relationships, more cash flow to manage. Tides scales with you. Want the full local picture? See our Beaufort bookkeeping services page.
From a single-location café to a multi-concept bar group — we understand how food service financials actually work.
High volume, tight margins, and a dozen moving parts. Food costs, labor, POS reconciliation, and vendor bills all demand a bookkeeper who understands the restaurant business.
Cash-heavy operations with complex tip reporting, comp tracking, and liquor inventory. We build a system that keeps your bar books audit-ready.
Mobile operations and event-based revenue require a flexible bookkeeping structure. We track income and expenses across locations and events so your numbers are always accurate.
Restaurant and bar finances have challenges that general bookkeepers routinely miss. Here's what we hear from nearly every new client.
You're busy every weekend, but are you actually profitable? Without tracking food cost percentages and labor ratios, you're running blind.
Tip income, tip pools, tip-out to support staff — the IRS has specific rules and the penalties for mishandling are real. We track it correctly from day one.
Sysco, US Foods, local suppliers, alcohol distributors — vendor invoices pile up fast. We track every bill and payment so nothing gets missed or paid twice.
Your sales are in Toast, your money is in three bank accounts, and your cards settle on a two-day delay. Reconciling it all manually is a nightmare. We handle it.
Every Tides plan includes all seven core services. Restaurant and bar clients get specific treatment for COGS tracking, POS reconciliation, and tip income reporting.
Every account reconciled, every transaction categorized, every month — without exception. You receive a clean P&L and balance sheet you can actually understand and use to make decisions about your business.
Monthly reports that show your income, food costs, labor, and overhead — so you can see exactly where your margins are going.
Every business account and credit card matched and verified each month. No mystery charges. No unresolved transactions. No surprises.
We track vendor bills, supplier payments, and outstanding invoices so your cash flow stays healthy and nothing gets missed or paid twice.
Months or years behind? We clean it all up before we start your regular monthly service — no matter how far back the backlog goes.
If you have front-of-house or back-of-house staff, we coordinate payroll processing and keep your tax filings clean and on schedule.
"Finally understanding our food cost percentages changed how we order and price our menu. Tides made our numbers make sense for the first time."
Questions we hear from food service business owners before they sign on with Tides.
Based in South Carolina. Serving food service businesses coast to coast, 100% remotely — because your books don't need to be in the same city as your kitchen.
Tides Bookkeeping specializes in bookkeeping across 12 distinct industries. Industry-specific expertise means fewer errors, better categorization, and a bookkeeper who already understands how your business makes money.
Schedule a free 15-minute call. We'll review your current setup, answer your questions, and give you a flat monthly quote — no pressure.
No credit card required · No long-term contracts · Cancel anytime