Built for operators who want control—not more software.
As a restaurant financial consultant, Margin & Menu helps independent restaurants and bars connect the systems behind the business—Toast POS, accounting, payroll, inventory, cash, tips, labor, and financial reporting.
Restaurant owners are buried in systems that were never designed to manage themselves.
A restaurant can have a great POS, good accounting software, payroll, inventory tools and capable managers—and still have no reliable picture of what's really happening financially.
The problem usually isn't one piece of software. It's the handoffs between systems: how sales become deposits, how tips get paid, how payroll is mapped, how inventory becomes COGS, how managers close shifts, and how all of it ultimately reaches the P&L.
Margin & Menu focuses on those handoffs. We make the back office understandable, repeatable and useful to ownership.
Four principles behind every engagement.
Make It Understandable
Owners and managers should understand the process—not depend on one person who “knows how it works.”
Make It Reconcile
Sales, deposits, cash, tips, payroll, inventory and accounting should be able to explain each other.
Build the Control In
The best control happens before a mistake, overpayment or unexplained variance reaches the books.
Use the Numbers
Reporting only matters if it helps ownership make a better decision about labor, COGS, cash or growth.
Restaurant finance without the accounting-firm language.
Independent hospitality is different. There are late nights, small teams, cash drawers, tips, discounts, comps, shift changes, inventory counts, merchant settlements and razor-thin margins.
We approach the back office from the operator's perspective: What happened? Where did the money go? Who owns the process? How do we know it happened correctly? What should management do next?
“Every sale, deposit, tip, labor dollar and inventory purchase should tell the same financial story.”
Margin & MenuWe sit between the software, the books and the operating floor.
We're not trying to replace every specialist. We make the specialists and systems work together.
Not Just Bookkeeping
We care about how the number got there: Toast configuration, shift procedures, deposits, tips, inventory and manager controls.
Not Just POS Consulting
We follow the POS data into accounting, payroll, inventory and owner reporting—not just the front-of-house setup.
Not Just Software
Software automates a process. We help determine whether the process itself is correct, controlled and useful.
One business. Multiple systems. One operating picture.
Toast is our specialty, but the work is broader than the POS. We focus on the financial operating system around the restaurant.
Toast POS
Configuration, permissions, drawers, tenders, discounts, comps, voids, refunds and shift procedures.
Accounting
QuickBooks mapping, clearing accounts, deposits, merchant fees, sales tax, chart of accounts and monthly close.
Payroll & Labor
Payroll mapping, labor percentage, overtime exposure, tips, scheduling controls and manager review.
Inventory & COGS
Count structure, purchasing, food and beverage cost, variance and category visibility.
Cash & Tips
Drawers, payouts, paid-outs, credit-card tips, deposits, closeouts and exception handling.
Owner Reporting
Prime cost, trends, cash flow, financial-health scorecards and action-oriented management reporting.
Independent operators who are ready to get serious about the back office.
Make the back office as disciplined as the front of house.
Start with a conversation or begin with the 360° Restaurant Systems Audit.