Restaurant books in Coquitlam come down to three routines: tie every day's sales to the money that actually arrived, run tips through payroll on the footing CRA and BC expect, and book delivery-app payouts at gross so the commission shows up as a cost. Each routine is small. Skipping any of them is how a busy month ends with a cash shortfall nobody can explain.
The same pattern holds along North Road, where Korean restaurants, bakeries and cafés line the street near Lougheed station, and in City Centre around Coquitlam Centre and the newer towers. The menus differ. The paperwork is very similar: a POS, a card processor, some cash, two or three delivery platforms and a payroll with tips in it.
What does a daily sales reconciliation involve?
It means matching the POS end-of-day report to the card batch, the cash count and each delivery platform for that day, then explaining any difference. The end-of-day report (sometimes called a Z report) is the source document. From it we take:
- Net sales by category: food, non-alcoholic drinks, soda, liquor, retail items
- Taxes collected, split into GST and PST
- Tips, by payment type
- Payments, by tender: card, cash, gift card, each delivery platform
- Discounts, voids and comps
Then the matching:
- Card batch. The processor's settlement for that business day, which usually lands in the bank a day or more later. A batch that never arrives is the most common gap we find.
- Cash. Counted cash, less the float, against cash sales and less any cash tips paid out.
- Delivery orders. Each platform's orders for the day against its own report, cleared later when the weekly payout lands.
- Variance note. Anything over a small tolerance gets a line of explanation while the manager still remembers the shift.
Thirty daily matches sound like more work than one monthly reconciliation. They are less, because each one is small, and a mismatch points to a single day rather than to a whole month.
How should card tips be recorded before payday?
Tips customers add on a card belong to staff from the moment they are paid, so they go to a liability account, not to sales. The card batch includes them, which means the deposit is larger than the day's sales by the tip amount. If the tips are booked as revenue, sales are overstated and the owner appears to earn money that is owed to the team.
Keep one tips-payable account. It rises with each day's card tips and falls when tips are paid out, whether in cash at the end of the shift or on the next payroll. At month-end its balance should equal the tips still owed. If it doesn't, either a payout was missed or a tip was paid twice, and the daily records show which.
Are your tips controlled or direct, and why does it matter for CPP and EI?
It decides whether payroll deductions apply. CRA defines controlled tips as tips the employer controls or possesses and must then pay to the employee; direct tips are paid by the customer to the employee, with the employer having no control over the amount or how it is shared (CRA, Tips received by employees).
| Treatment | Controlled tips | Direct tips |
|---|---|---|
| CRA examples | Mandatory service charge added to the bill; tips allocated with a sharing formula the employer sets | Cash left for the server; a card tip the employer hands back in cash at the end of the shift |
| Income tax, CPP, EI withheld | Yes | No |
| On the T4 | Boxes 14, 24 and 26 | Not reported |
| Employee's side | Already on the T4 | Reported on their own return; may elect CPP with Form CPT20 |
CRA's CPP/EI guidance adds that when an employee receives both kinds, only the controlled tips count as pensionable or insurable earnings (CRA, Tips and gratuities).
The practical point: a house that pools tips and splits them by a formula it sets is usually running controlled tips, and payroll has to treat them that way. We set up the payroll software with separate earnings lines for controlled tips so the deductions and T4 boxes come out right, through our payroll management service. If you're unsure which describes your house, write down how tips actually move from the customer to the staff, then confirm the classification with your CPA.
What do BC's Employment Standards rules say about tip pools?
An employer can't keep, withhold or deduct from staff tips, with two exceptions: a tip pool, or a deduction a law or court order requires (gov.bc.ca, Tips and gratuities). The details are in sections 30.3 and 30.4 of the Employment Standards Act (BC Laws).
What that means for the books:
- A pool is allowed. The employer may collect gratuities and redistribute them among some or all employees, and decides who shares and how much.
- Owners mostly stay out. Employers, directors and shareholders can't share in the pool unless they substantially do the same work as the employees who share it. An owner who works the line or the floor every shift is in a different position from one who runs the office.
- No deductions from tips. Outside those two exceptions, the employer can't make a deduction from gratuities before they reach staff.
- Tips aren't wages under the Act. Its definition of wages leaves gratuities out, so keep tip lines separate from hourly pay on every pay stub.
- Money kept in breach is owed. A gratuity withheld contrary to the Act is a debt due to the employee and can be collected like unpaid wages.
The policy is yours and your HR advisor's to set. Our job is to make the records prove it: a written pool formula, a record of each period's pool total, each person's share, and a payroll that matches.
How do you book a delivery-app payout?
Book it from the platform's statement, not from the deposit. A payout nets together several things: the menu value of the orders, the platform's commission, any promotions or discounts you agreed to fund, refunds for missing or cold items, adjustments, and sometimes taxes. The bank sees one number. Your income statement needs all of them.
Say a weekly payout lands at $3,000. The statement shows $4,000 of orders, $1,000 of commission and fees, and nothing else. The entry is $4,000 to sales, $1,000 to delivery commission expense, and $3,000 to the bank. Booking only the $3,000 as sales makes revenue look smaller and hides a $1,000 cost that is worth watching.
Our routine for each platform:
- A clearing account per platform, so daily orders sit there until the payout lands.
- Each payout matched to its statement, with commission, promotions, refunds and adjustments on their own lines.
- Whatever tax lines the statement shows are carried into the tax accounts as stated, and anything unclear is flagged for your CPA rather than guessed.
- A monthly check that the clearing account comes back to zero, apart from orders still waiting on the next payout.
The reward is a clear delivery margin. Some owners find a platform's orders cost more to fill than they bring in once commission and funded promotions are counted. That is a menu or pricing decision for you, made easier by numbers you can see.
How do PST and GST apply to restaurant sales in BC?
PST depends on what is sold, and GST generally applies to restaurant food. In BC, food for human consumption is exempt from PST, liquor carries 10% PST, soda beverages are taxed at 7%, and other non-alcoholic hot or cold drinks such as coffee or iced tea are exempt. Mandatory gratuities are not part of the purchase price, so PST doesn't apply to them (gov.bc.ca, Food and beverage service providers).
On the GST side, CRA's basic groceries memorandum treats food and drinks sold through restaurants, cafeterias and coffee shops as taxable rather than zero-rated (GST/HST Memorandum 4.3). A bakery that sells loaves or packaged goods to take home may have some zero-rated sales mixed in, and whether they qualify depends on the details your CPA checks.
All of this relies on POS categories. If soda, liquor and food sit in one "beverages" button, the return becomes an estimate. We set up the categories with you, then build GST and PST returns straight from the sales data through our GST and PST filing service.
What does the monthly close add on top of the daily work?
It turns thirty reconciled days into statements you can act on, by the 10th of the following month:
- Daily sales, card batches, cash and delivery payouts confirmed against the bank.
- Supplier invoices for food, drink and packaging captured and coded, with credits tracked until they arrive.
- Tips payable checked to zero, or to tips genuinely still owed.
- Payroll, controlled tips included, reconciled to the remittance.
- Prime cost (food, drink and labour as a share of sales) reported with last month alongside.
- A short note on anything unusual: a jump in platform commission, a supplier price change, a short day.
That routine sits inside our monthly bookkeeping service. For the bigger picture across a Coquitlam owner-operator's year, read the Coquitlam owner-operator's guide to bookkeeping. Our notes on what bookkeeping costs in Coquitlam in 2026 and the year-end checklist for Tri-Cities owner-operators cover the fee and what year-end asks of a restaurant company. Clinic owners sharing a building with a café will find the medical side in bookkeeping for Tri-Cities dental and medical clinics.
Questions owners ask
Can a BC restaurant owner keep part of the tips?
Only in narrow cases. Under the Employment Standards Act an employer cannot withhold or deduct from staff gratuities except through a tip pool or where a law or court order requires it, and an owner can share in the pool only if they substantially do the same work as the staff sharing it.
Do I deduct CPP and EI on tips?
On controlled tips, yes: income tax, CPP and EI are withheld and the tips go on the T4. Direct tips, which pass from the customer to the employee without the employer controlling them, carry no deductions and are not reported on the T4.
Is a tip pool controlled or direct for CRA purposes?
CRA gives tips allocated with a sharing formula set by the employer as an example of controlled tips, as are mandatory service charges added to the bill. That means payroll deductions apply and the amounts are reported on the T4.
Do I charge PST on restaurant meals in BC?
No PST on food for human consumption, but liquor carries 10 percent PST and soda beverages 7 percent. Mandatory gratuities are not part of the purchase price, so PST does not apply to them.
How should I book a delivery-app payout?
Book the order value as sales and the platform commission, promotions and refunds as their own lines, using the platform statement for that payout. The bank deposit is only the net, so booking it as sales understates both revenue and costs.
Why reconcile sales every day instead of monthly?
A short till or a missing card batch is easy to explain the next morning and nearly impossible after four weeks. Daily matching also keeps tips owed to staff accurate before each payroll.