CASE STUDY

THE STORY OF A LITTLE BAR WITH A LITTLE MONEY

OVERVIEW
Once upon a time in the Pacific Northwest, there was a new bar; just opened in October. The build-out ran over budget and time. Cash flow was very tight. This new bar was part of a larger organization with centralized upper level management and back office support, including accounting.

Day to day operations were run by the Chef and the General Manager (GM). They would make purchases by debit card and check. As a start-up they had to pay cash for all liquor, beer and some food deliveries. They used a point of sale system called Toast.

On Tuesday afternoons, the GM would collect the prior week's accounting paperwork and deliver it to the main office. The accounting staff would record the transactions, usually on Friday mornings in QuickBooks Desktop.

The cash on hand was never current. Upper level management didn't know what cash was available and struggled to make payroll and pay bills. Paperwork received in the main office would be up to 12 days old by the time it was recorded. There was always an unknown number of purchases in the current week.

The accounting system involved manually entering all transactions. It was inefficient and prone to data entry errors. Checks would be printed on check stock, signed, stapled, stuffed and mailed. Then came the filing....yuck!