A shop with a kitchen and an aggregator
Food cost moves daily, labour is rostered against covers, and a third of your revenue may arrive through a platform that keeps a third of the order. F&B accounting has to move weekly, not monthly.
A food unit in a mall is a retail store with a factory attached and a third-party sales force it does not control. Food cost moves daily, labour is rostered against covers rather than hours, and a growing share of revenue arrives through aggregators that take a substantial commission and remit on their own schedule. The accounting has to keep up with all three.
Where F&B accounts go wrong
- Aggregator revenue booked net. The most common and most damaging error. An order worth AED 100 remitted at AED 70 is AED 100 of revenue and AED 30 of commission — booking AED 70 understates revenue, hides the largest controllable cost in the business, makes food cost percentage look inflated, and can under-declare turnover rent where the lease measures gross order value.
- No opening and closing stock. Without counts, food cost is just purchases, which swings wildly with delivery timing and tells you nothing.
- Wastage and staff meals in cost of sales. Real costs, but they belong where you can see them, not buried in food cost.
- Tips and service charge run through revenue. Amounts collected for staff are not the restaurant's revenue and should not inflate turnover — including turnover declared to the landlord.
- Fit-out treated as expense. Kitchen fit-out is capital, depreciated across the lease term, with the rent-free period handled as a lease incentive under IFRS 16.
The weekly numbers a food operator should see
| Metric | Typically watched at | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Food cost % | Weekly, by outlet | Portioning, purchasing, wastage and theft |
| Beverage cost % | Weekly | Usually where the margin is, and where it leaks |
| Labour cost % | Weekly, against covers | Whether the roster matches the trade |
| Prime cost (food + labour) | Weekly | The single best early-warning number in F&B |
| Aggregator mix & net contribution | Monthly | Whether delivery volume is actually profitable after commission |
| Occupancy cost % | Monthly | Whether the unit can carry its rent |
Delivery orders carry the same food cost as dine-in but pay a commission that can approach a third of the order value, while contributing turnover that may attract turnover rent at gross. A unit can grow delivery revenue strongly and reduce its profit. We model contribution per channel so the decision to push delivery is made on numbers.
What we handle
Daily sales capture across dine-in, takeaway and every aggregator; supplier invoice processing and purchase price tracking; weekly stock counts and food cost reporting; WPS payroll including split shifts and service-charge distribution; VAT on food and beverage including the municipality fee treatment; landlord turnover statements; and the annual financial statements and Corporate Tax return.
Reviewed 18 August 2026 by Ahmed Nabil Selim. UAE tax rates, thresholds and deadlines change — confirm the position for your period before relying on it.
Restaurant accounting — frequently asked questions
Gross revenue with commission as a separate expense. The aggregator is your agent for the sale, not your customer — the full order value is your revenue and the commission it retains is a cost of sale distribution. Recording only the net remittance understates turnover, hides your largest controllable cost, distorts food cost percentage, and risks under-declaring turnover rent where the lease measures gross order value. Each aggregator also needs its own receivable control account, because remittance cycles and deduction practices differ.
Yes — restaurant and café sales are standard-rated at 5%, whether dine-in, takeaway or delivery. Menu prices displayed to consumers must be VAT-inclusive. Where a municipality fee applies to the outlet it forms part of the consideration for the supply and is included in the VAT base rather than added afterwards, so it needs to be built into pricing rather than bolted on at the till. See retail VAT.
Amounts collected on behalf of staff are not the restaurant's revenue. They should be held as a liability and distributed, not run through the P&L as income with a matching wage cost — and critically, they should not be included in turnover declared to a landlord under a turnover-rent clause, since they were never the tenant's sales. Where the outlet retains part of a service charge, that retained portion is revenue and is treated accordingly.
It varies by format far too much for a single benchmark to be useful — a beverage-led café, a quick-service counter and a full-service casual-dining unit operate at genuinely different food costs. What matters more than hitting someone else's number is measuring yours weekly against opening and closing stock, watching the trend, and tracking prime cost (food plus labour) as the combined figure, since operators frequently trade one against the other without noticing.
Want this handled properly?
Tell us how your store trades — the mall, the lease, the payment channels. We will scope the work and quote a fixed monthly fee.
Talk to a retail accountant →