Managing multiple concepts? Here’s how to simplify your financial consolidation process.

If you operate multiple restaurant concepts, you already know: the challenge isn’t just running a great business. It’s running several, each with its own P&L, operational quirks, and financial data. One might be a fast-casual burger joint, another a polished taqueria, and another a family-friendly pizza brand. All with different menus, team sizes, and peak hours. 

But at the end of the day, there’s one common denominator: they all roll up to your bottom line. That’s why having a streamlined process for financial consolidation for multi-unit restaurants is critical if you want clarity and control over your numbers.

For growth-minded operators, getting a clear picture of that bottom line is easier said than done, especially if your financial consolidation process still includes spreadsheets, email chains, and last-minute manual work. If your back office feels more like a balancing act than a business engine, you’re not alone. 

Let’s walk through how top-performing operators consolidate and evaluate financial performance across multiple brands and how you can, too. 

First, Standardize Your Chart of Accounts 

Before you can analyze anything, you have to speak the same financial language across all units. That starts with your Chart of Accounts (COA). 

It’s essential that your COA includes every category used across every brand or location, from food costs to linen services to third-party delivery fees. If one brand tracks beverage purchases under “Beverage Supplies” and another calls it “Bar Inventory,” you’ll spend hours just trying to match terms before you ever see the numbers. 

Pro Tip: Use a cloud-based centralized system that references the same COA across all locations. That way, every entry feeds into one standardized structure. 

Align Your Reporting Periods 

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to compare financials from different units—only to realize one location is on a four-week period while another tracks by calendar month. 

Establishing a unified reporting schedule across all brands helps eliminate that misalignment. Communicate this schedule clearly with location managers and ensure they understand the deadlines and the importance of consistency. 

This one move can reduce the friction of your month-end or period-end wrap-ups significantly. 

Generate Financial Statements at the Unit Level 

Next, it’s time to dig into each brand or location’s individual performance. This means pulling: 

• Profit & Loss Statements 
• Balance Sheets 
• Cash Flow Statements 

Each location should have these reports generated individually before any consolidation happens. Accuracy at the unit level is critical—if the individual statements are flawed, your consolidated financials will be, too. 

This is also a key opportunity to spot early indicators of performance trends—positive or negative—before you’re looking at rolled-up numbers. 

Bring It All Together 

Once your unit-level statements are clean, it’s time to consolidate. 

That doesn’t just mean copy-pasting line items into a mega spreadsheet. You’ll want to: 

• Recalculate combined totals for shared accounts like labor, food cost, or rent 
• Cross-reference brand-specific costs with systemwide ones 
• Ensure all totals still balance and reflect actual operational activity 

With multiple locations, this part can feel like a full-time job—especially if you’re managing it with spreadsheets or disconnected software. 

Generate a Consolidated Financial Statement 

Once your data is aggregated, use it to generate a true consolidated set of financials that reflects your organization as a whole. This is what allows you to speak to investors, make informed growth decisions, and forecast more accurately. 

Make sure the new, combined financials are: 

• Balanced 
• Accurate 
• Reflective of operational realities 
• Aligned with your strategic goals 

This is your chance to step back and assess your entire business, not just each store. 

Evaluate Unit-Level Performance 

Now that your financials are in order, it’s time to get analytical. Dig into unit-specific reports and track the KPIs that really matter: 

• Cost of Goods Sold 
• Labor Cost Percentage 
• Average Check Size 
• Table Turnover Rate 
• Food Cost % 
• Inventory Turnover Rate 

Each metric tells a story. Maybe one location is crushing sales but struggling with labor efficiency. Maybe another has strong food cost control but underperforms in average check size. When you know the story, you can write a better strategy. 

Identify What’s Working and What’s Not 

You’re now in a position to compare unit performance with intention. Look at: 

• Best-selling and worst-selling items 
• Promotional campaign effectiveness 
• Overtime trends and labor inefficiencies 
• Waste patterns or signs of theft 
• Units that consistently over- or under-perform 

The goal? Build action plans for underperformers—and replicate winning tactics from your high-performers. 

One More Thing: Automate It 

Let’s be honest: even the best checklist still takes time. And if you’re scaling, that time adds up fast. Modern platforms designed for financial consolidation for multi-unit restaurants can eliminate hours of manual work and replace them with just a few clicks.

That’s why more multi-unit operators are investing in platforms like Back Office, which automates financial consolidation across all locations. It turns hours of reconciliation into just a few clicks, so you can spend less time crunching numbers and more time optimizing operations. 

The Bottom Line 

When you’re leading multiple restaurant concepts, you need more than intuition—you need visibility. Financial consolidation isn’t just about getting the numbers to add up. It’s about unlocking insights that help you scale smarter, faster, and with less friction. 

And if you’re looking for a streamlined way to build your consolidation process, complete with practical steps, real-world strategies, and tools that make the job easier, there’s a resource built specifically for multi-unit operators like you. 

Click here to take the complexity out of consolidation and get back to growing your business. 

Consistency, clarity, control—it all starts with how you manage your financials. 

Click here to learn more about how Consolidated Concepts helps multi-unit restaurants streamline financial consolidation and boost profitability.

Managing financials across multiple locations can feel like an uphill battle, but Back Office’s accounting solution transforms this challenge into an opportunity for growth. Purpose-built for restaurant operators, their dynamic technology centralizes financial data from all your locations into one user-friendly dashboard. With real-time insights, customizable reporting, and advanced tools like drill-down P&Ls and digitized invoices, you’ll gain the clarity and control needed to make faster, smarter business decisions. 

Why it matters: Streamlined accounting enhances financial accuracy, reduces manual errors, and replaces inefficient processes with actionable data, empowering you to align daily operations with your profit goals and drive consistency across your brand.

AP Automation for Time and Cost Savings

Managing accounts payable shouldn’t feel like a full-time job. Back Office ap automation takes the hassle out of invoice processing by digitizing the entire invoice lifecycle—from digitization to payment. By automating manual tasks, you’ll save up to 4 hours per week, reduce costly errors, and eliminate the chaos of paper-based workflows. 

Key benefits: 

• Save time and money: Streamline invoice processing to avoid late payments and focus on growing your business. 

• Increase accuracy and efficiency: Digitized invoices and automated workflows reduce errors and speed up approvals. 

• Enhance visibility and control: Real-time tracking and customizable workflows provide precise oversight and better cash flow management. 

With Back Office AP Automation, you can ensure timely vendor payments, improve cash flow, and free your team to focus on strategic priorities—not paperwork.

Bookkeeping+ for Precision and Scalability

Staying on top of your restaurant’s finances doesn’t have to be a time-consuming burden. With the Back Office bookkeeping+ solution, you gain access to industry-specific professionals who streamline your financial processes and deliver precise, audit-ready reporting. From tracking expenses to automated transaction processing, Bookkeeping+ ensures meticulous financial oversight tailored to the unique needs of restaurant operators. 

Key benefits: 

• Exclusive expertise: Industry-specific bookkeeping professionals handle the intricacies of restaurant finances. 

• Increased accuracy: Transparent financial reporting helps you make confident, informed decisions. 

• Scalable growth: Streamlined bookkeeping frees up resources, allowing you to focus on expanding your business. 

With Back Office Bookkeeping+, you can transform tedious financial tasks into a seamless process, enabling your team to focus on running and growing your restaurant.

Food Cost Management for Maximized Profitability

Food costs are one of the largest expenses for restaurant operators, but managing them doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Back Office food cost management technology empowers operators with real-time visibility into ingredient costs, automated inventory tracking, and precise recipe costing. Whether you’re running a single location or managing multiple units, our software centralizes data and provides actionable insights to help you control costs and boost profitability. 

How it helps: 

• Simplify operations: Replace manual spreadsheets with automated processes like invoice digitization and COGS reporting. 

• Optimize profitability: Track ingredient prices in real-time, ensure consistent plate costs, and adjust menu pricing to protect margins. 

• Drive consistency across locations: Standardize recipes and purchasing analytics for uniform reporting and cost control. 

With intuitive tools from Back Office, you can transform food cost management from a challenge into a strategic advantage, ensuring long-term growth and operational efficiency.

Payroll Solutions to Simplify and Optimize Workforce Management

Handling payroll for a restaurant operation can feel like an uphill climb, especially when juggling employee classifications, labor laws, and tax filings. Payroll solutions from Back Office transforms this tedious task into a streamlined process, enabling you to save time, minimize errors, and maintain compliance effortlessly. 

Why it’s essential: 

• Reduce manual tasks: Automate data entry and payroll calculations to reduce errors and free up valuable time. 

• Optimize cash flow: Gain real-time insights into payroll expenses to budget effectively and manage labor costs. 

• Enhance labor control: Track sales and staffing metrics through a user-friendly dashboard to reduce overtime and optimize scheduling. 

Back Office also empowers your team with tools like a self-service employee portal for payroll documents and direct POS integrations, cutting payroll review time to under 20 minutes. With reliable, accurate data, you’re not just processing payroll—you’re driving better operational decisions. 

Simplify Your Back Office Operations  

At Consolidated Concepts, we understand that true operational excellence extends beyond the front of house. That’s why we partner with forward-thinking brands like Back Office to provide solutions that enhance the efficiency and accuracy of your back-office operations. 

Back Office offers a suite of tools designed specifically for restaurant operators, including accounting, AP automation, bookkeeping+, food cost management, and payroll. These solutions help you reduce costs, save time, and streamline complex processes, empowering your team to focus on driving business success. 

Ready to optimize your operations? Fill out the form below to contact us today and discover how Back Office solutions can transform your back-office operations and support your long-term growth. 

 

Balancing the demands of multiple restaurant locations requires a constant awareness of time’s ticking clock. Decisions must be quick, impactful, and directly tied to profitability.

Leveraging innovative tech tools not only streamlines decision-making processes but also enhances overall operational efficiency, providing a crucial edge in sustaining profitability across multiple restaurant locations.

What is a Tech Tool?

A tech tool refers to any software, application, device, or solution that is designed to assist or enhance the performance of tasks related to technology or information technology. These tools can range from simple applications that perform specific functions to complex software platforms that address a variety of needs.

Examples of tech tools include:

• Financial Management Software
• Predictive Analytics for Demand Forecasting
• Workflow Automation Tools

Essentially, any tool that utilizes technology to accomplish a task or solve a problem can be considered a tech tool. Tech tools play a crucial role in the industry, helping multi-unit restaurant operators streamline processes, increase efficiency, and achieve their goals.

Let’s breakdown the crucial, often underestimated tech tools that can redefine efficiency for multi-unit restaurant operators.

Back Office 

At the heart of efficient multi-unit restaurant management lies the transformative power of back office technology.

• Streamlined Operations: Simplifying your tech stack including food cost management, payroll, ap automation, accounting, and bookkeeping through integrated back-office solutions.
• Real-Time Insights: Access to critical data, enabling informed decisions, and proactive adjustments to optimize back office performance.
• Cost Controls: Enhanced visibility into expenses, labor management, and financial analytics to maximize back office profitability.

Embracing integrated back-office solutions enables multi-unit restaurants to seize control of operations, fostering agility and data-driven decision-making for sustained growth and efficiency.

Spend Management 

Efficient financial strategies lie at the core of successful multi-unit restaurants. Here’s how spend management technology revolutionizes financial operations and empowers strategic decision-making:

• Centralized Procurement: Consolidating purchasing power across units to drive economies of scale and secure favorable pricing.
• Negotiation Expertise: Leveraging industry insights and expertise for strategic vendor negotiations, reducing costs without compromising quality.
• Data-Driven Efficiency: Analyzing spending patterns to identify areas for savings and directing resources towards high-impact investments.

By harnessing the power of spend management technology, multi-unit restaurants can not only optimize their financial strategies but also fortify their positions for sustainable growth and success in a demanding market landscape.

Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management technology drives operational efficiency for multi-unit restaurants. Here’s how it works:

• Seamless Integration: Connecting with a robust supply chain network to ensure timely and reliable delivery of goods and services.
• Risk Mitigation: Reducing supply chain disruptions through contingency planning and diversification of suppliers.
• Sustainability Focus: Embracing eco-friendly practices and ethical sourcing, aligning with modern consumer values while reducing costs long-term.

Supply chain management technology emerges as the bedrock for operational resilience, empowering multi-unit restaurants to navigate challenges, ensure consistency, and uphold sustainable practices for enduring success in a dynamic industry.

Offering comprehensive assistance across the spectrum of crucial technology solutions for multi-unit restaurant operators, Consolidated Concepts stands as the guiding force.

Holistic Integration

• Back Office Technology: Leveraging sophisticated software to streamline business operations, manage costs, and enhance visibility into financial analytics.
• Spend Management Technology: Utilizing negotiation expertise and centralized procurement strategies to optimize vendor relations and drive cost efficiency.
• Supply Chain Management Technology: Overseeing contract compliance, ensuring visibility into produce management, and pinpointing the precise products tailored to fulfill the operational requirements.

Tailored Expertise

• Custom Solutions: Tailored technology solutions to fit the unique needs and scale of multi-unit restaurant operations.
• Industry Insights: Providing guidance and strategies honed through extensive experience within the foodservice industry.
• Proven Results: Demonstrating tangible success stories showcasing cost reductions, improved efficiencies, and sustainable practices.

Collaborative Partnership

• Ongoing Support: Offering continuous assistance, guidance, and updates to ensure optimal utilization of integrated tech solutions.
• Scalable Solutions: Adapting to the evolving needs and growth trajectories of multi-unit restaurant operations.
• Future-Ready Approach: Anticipating industry trends and technological advancements to keep partners ahead of the curve.

Consolidated Concepts expertise and tailored technology solutions make them the perfect partner for multi-unit restaurant operators seeking to excel in an increasingly competitive environment driven by data efficiency and technology.

Join Consolidated Concepts today!