Restaurant ERP Consultant, UK

Eat-in, takeaway and delivery: getting till data right for VAT

In the UK, the VAT treatment of food can depend on how it is served. Whether an item is eaten on the premises or taken away, whether it is hot or cold, and what kind of product it is can all affect the liability. Restaurants, cafes and quick service outlets that sell across these modes need the till to record the distinction at the moment of sale, because nobody can reconstruct it afterwards.

That makes the EPOS configuration a finance concern, not just an operations one. During requirements I review how menu items, modifiers and order types are set up on the till, and how delivery orders arriving through aggregator tablets or integrations are tagged. The ERP then receives sales split by site, order type and VAT code, which gives the VAT return a clean source.

I do not decide which rate applies to which dish; that is for your accountant or tax advisor, and the rules change from time to time. What I do is make sure the system can carry whatever answer they give, that a menu change cannot go live without its tax code, and that test scenarios cover the awkward cases, such as a meal deal mixing hot and cold items. The UK-wide picture of VAT and Making Tax Digital sits on my UK ERP consultant page.

Aggregator payouts, commission invoices and refunds

Delivery aggregators pay restaurants net of their own charges. A typical weekly statement lists orders, the restaurant's share of any promotion, commission, refunds for missing or late items and sometimes adjustments from earlier weeks, then arrives in the bank as one figure. The aggregator usually also issues an invoice for its commission and fees, which carries its own VAT.

If finance posts only the bank receipt, sales are understated, commission vanishes into a net figure and input VAT on the commission invoice may be missed. I design the flow so gross delivery sales come from the till, the statement clears them through an aggregator control account, commission and promotion costs are booked from the invoice, and the control account returns to zero when the payout lands.

Refunds deserve particular attention. Repeated refunds for the same site, dish or driver window often point to an operational problem, from packaging to kitchen timing. I add a simple report so operations, not just finance, see them each week. Where the aggregator offers data exports or an interface, I confirm what it actually contains before committing to automation, because formats differ and change. Hotels, pubs and wider hospitality estates are covered on my UK hospitality ERP page.

Recipes, allergens and site food safety records

UK restaurants must be able to tell customers which allergens are in each dish, and food businesses register each premises with the local authority and keep food safety records for inspection. These obligations sit mainly with your kitchen leaders and food safety advisor, but the ERP can help if recipe data is built properly.

I design the recipe library so every ingredient carries its supplier specification, including allergen information, and every dish inherits allergens from its ingredients and sub-recipes. When a supplier substitutes a product, the change is visible on every dish that uses it. That same structure produces the theoretical cost of the dish, so the kitchen maintains one set of records rather than separate cost and allergen spreadsheets.

A word of caution: I do not position the ERP as your legal allergen record, and I always ask your food safety lead to confirm how the information is presented to guests. Some groups prefer a dedicated menu or compliance tool that reads recipe data from the ERP. For each site, I can also record registration details, inspection dates and responsible managers as part of the site master, so a growing group knows where its paperwork stands. The recipe and costing model behind this is described on ERP for restaurants.

Food halls, concessions and franchise sites

UK restaurant brands often trade in places they do not control: food halls, stations, shopping centers, stadiums and festival sites. In many of these, the venue operator runs the tills or the card terminals, collects the takings and pays the brand a settlement after deducting rent, service fees and shared costs. Franchise sites add another layer, with royalties and marketing contributions paid on reported sales.

Each arrangement creates a statement the group needs to check. I design a settlement model for each venue type: gross sales imported from the venue's report or your own till, each deduction mapped to a cost account, and the net payment matched to the bank. Differences are flagged by site, so commercial teams can raise them with the operator quickly.

For franchise sites, I translate the franchise agreement's sales definition and fee terms into calculation rules, and agree a standard sales file that each franchisee submits, whatever till they use. Pop-up and event trading is set up as temporary locations with their own stock and takings, so a weekend festival does not distort the results of the flagship. This is the kind of requirement I document during ERP business analysis, before any vendor demonstration.

Choosing a platform and rolling out site by site

A common UK starting point is Xero or Sage for accounts, a separate EPOS, and either the stock module of the EPOS or a specialist stock and recipe tool. The honest first question is whether that stack, better configured and connected, would solve the problem. A full ERP earns its place when there is a central production kitchen, several companies, franchise or concession settlements, or a finance team that needs one ledger instead of several.

When an ERP is the right step, I test Zoho, Odoo, ERPNext and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central on your scenarios: a Saturday's takings from one site, a weekly aggregator statement with refunds, a supplier price increase moving through recipes, and a food hall settlement. Groups working in four-week periods rather than calendar months need that reflected in reporting, so I test it too.

Rollout is remote and runs one site at a time. The pilot site takes opening stock, uses the new ordering and counting routines for several weeks, and its first gross profit variance is reviewed with the head chef before the template moves to the next site. Tips and tronc handling remain with your payroll provider; I design only the clearing entries. More UK context is on the UK hub.