Can I check restaurant numbers without POS or bank access?

Yes. You can get a useful first read of your restaurant's numbers from figures you already know: your monthly sales, the share of them that food and drink, labor and rent take, and how you run a few things. No POS, bank or accounting login is needed. What you get is an estimate that shows where to look first, not an audit.

Start with the numbers you already know

You need four figures for the same month, from papers you already have.

1. 01Last month's sales, after discounts and comps, from your end-of-month sales summary.
2. 02What food and drink cost you that month, from supplier invoices, adjusted for stock on hand if you count it.
3. 03Total labor: wages, payroll taxes and benefits, from your payroll summary.
4. 04Rent, the charges on top of rent, and utilities, from the lease and the bills.

A worked example at $60,000 a month

A full-service restaurant sells $60,000 in a month. Food and drink cost $21,600 and total labor $19,800.

RestaurantDoctorAI's targets for full service are food and drink at 30–34% of sales, labor at 30–35%, and a prime cost of 65% or less. This restaurant's prime cost is 4 points over that ceiling. At $60,000 in sales, one point is $600 a month, so 4 points are worth $2,400 a month, or $28,800 a year.

Food and drink is the half to look at first: at 36%, it's 2 points over the top of its range, about $1,200 a month. Labor, at 33%, is inside its range. That took four figures and no login. What it can't tell you is why food and drink runs at 36%.

What a no-login check can see, and what it can't

A check that never connects sees only what you tell it: your shares of sales, or the ranges they fall in, and how you run things. It has no transaction detail, so it can't see:

• Your item mix: which dishes sell, and which carry a thin margin.
• Voids, comps and discounts, by server or by shift.
• Exact hours: who was clocked in while sales were slow.
• Price changes on each line of each invoice.

So its results are estimated ranges from your answers, not an audit of your books. If an answer is off, the estimate is off too. Use it to find where to look, then check that area against your own records.

When connecting your POS or accounting tool is worth it

Tools that connect to your POS, payroll or accounting software read the transactions themselves. They can show sales by item and by hour, voids and comps, labor against sales hour by hour, and a profit and loss statement that stays current. Connecting is usually worth it when:

• You want to track food, labor and sales every week, not once.
• You need item-level detail to reprice or trim a menu.
• You suspect voids, comps or missing cash, and need the transaction log to see it.
• Your bookkeeping is current, so the numbers a tool reads are right.

Many owners do both, in order: a no-login read first to find the area, then a connected tool or their accountant for the detail in that area.

Five questions to ask before you give any tool access

These apply to any app or service that asks to connect to your POS, payroll, accounting or bank account. They follow the Federal Trade Commission's cybersecurity advice for small businesses on working with vendors.

1. 01What data will it read? Ask for the list. The FTC's advice is to limit a vendor's access to what it needs, and only for as long as it needs it.
2. 02Is the access read-only? Reading data and changing it are often separate permissions. Square, for example, lists reading payments and writing them as two permissions an app can ask for. A tool that only reports on your numbers shouldn't need to change them.
3. 03Where is the data kept, and for how long? Ask where it's stored, how long it's kept and how it's deleted when you leave. The FTC lists these among the terms to settle with a vendor.
4. 04How do I disconnect it? Find out before you connect. In Square, connected apps are under Settings, then App integrations, and each one has a Disconnect App option. In Toast, staff with the Manage Integrations permission can remove a connected integration from the My Integrations page in Toast Web.
5. 05Is my data sold or shared? Look for the answer in the tool's privacy policy, or ask for it in writing. The FTC lists how a vendor can use, share or sell your data among the terms to decide on.

A clear answer to all five is a good sign. A vague one is a reason to ask again before you connect.

How RestaurantDoctorAI's free check works

RestaurantDoctorAI's free check is a no-login check. It asks 12 multiple-choice questions: your type of restaurant, your monthly sales range, your prime cost as a range (or that you don't track it), the share of sales that goes to rent, property costs and utilities, and how you handle recipe costing, waste, drink pours, slow shifts, delivery apps, guest follow-up and reviews, and how full the dining room is across the week. None of them asks for a POS, bank or accounting login, or for your name or email.

On our website, the free result is worked out in your browser. As our privacy policy says, your answers are sent to us only if you continue to checkout, use a prepaid code or ask to be introduced to a partner company. The result shows a grade, an estimated profit leak as a range, a month and a year, and the biggest leak or opportunity to look at first. How it works shows each step, and our methodology shows how the estimates are worked out.

Common questions

Is it safe to use a restaurant audit tool that doesn't connect to my POS?

A tool that never connects can't read or change your transactions, so what's left to check is what it keeps of the answers you type in. Read its privacy policy for that, and for whether anything is sold, as you would for any tool. Its limit is detail: it gives estimates, not an audit.

Can I do a financial health check without bank access?

Yes. Prime cost, food and drink cost, labor and rent as shares of sales come from your sales summary, invoices, payroll summary and lease. Compare each with the target for your type of restaurant, then look closer at the one furthest over. See the targets by restaurant type.