I am newly self employed as a bookkeeper. I have two prospective clients who have restaurants. I have not worked in the food industry before, is there there anything I need to know that is exclusive to this area to do the books for them?
Seriously though. Some restaurants and bars can be a nightmare. Probably no different from any other business then!
You really have to watch out for vatable and non-vatable items. If they have a till that automatically sorts this out, then that is a complete blessing.
If they have casual staff not on paye then make sure that they have water tight self employed contracts. If they have a PAYE inspection and no contracts are in place, the revenue will class them all as employees and the employers and employees will get landed with back tax, NI, fines and interest to pay.