Why is restaurant franchise accounting software important? Let’s take a look at the current state of the restaurant franchise market…

Statistics released between 2018-2019 show that 10,000 new restaurants are opened each year despite a 6% increase in labour costs for 71% of operators and a 1-2% increase in food costs.

Quick service restaurants (QSRs) – or fast food restaurants – make up the fastest growing segment of the restaurant industry, with around 12% of the British public buying fast food once a week.

To meet and capitalise on this demand, 60% of franchises now offer value meals – such as McDonald’s Saver Menu or Burger King’s King Saver menu – making the companies’ offerings accessible to an even broader market.

However, 22% of these had a negative impact on margins in 2018, despite increased revenue and overall growth in the QSR market.

Nevertheless, the market is resilient; this has become evident over the last few years, with the QSR market value dropping from over £21 billion in 2020 to £18.9 billion in 2021 as a result of closures during the pandemic, and good recovery seen in 2022 bringing the market value back up to £20.6 billion.

How can franchise operators ensure further recovery and growth?

The role of the finance team within a franchise – whether it be a single franchise branch or a multiple franchise management business – is to ensure the business’ margins can continue to grow.

To provide room for this progression, the finance leader must connect front-of-house with back-of-house to improve visibility and efficiency, and ultimately drive growth.

However, a restaurant must have the right technology in place, and know how to use it effectively. Without these tools and knowledge, the business is unlikely to meet its future goals.

Without modern systems designed to grow with your business, you will find your processes are lacking and you’ll be unable to achieve your business goals.

What’s the best accounting software for restaurants?

When it comes to restaurants – of any shape or size, franchise or not – there is one solution that stands out amongst the crowd.

Sage Intacct, a best-in-class accounting system for restaurants which is capable of providing you with the tools you need to improve efficiency in your restaurant franchise business by 25-50%.

With Sage Intacct, there is no need for spreadsheets, saving hours of time for your team in manipulation and analysis of data, creation of reports and accessing insights.

Sage Intacct was designed and built in the cloud with automation at its core.

As a result, users benefit from automation of complex consolidations, performance and outcome metrics, and automatic synchronisation of data, allowing you and your team to view high-level trends across locations via role-based dashboards.

With this level of visibility, you can pinpoint cost drivers using dimensions, automatically present operating results as statistical metrics, and most importantly, make proactive business decisions with the knowledge gained through real-time insights.

Improve productivity and efficiency across the business by integrating your existing systems – including point-of-sale, accounts payable, reservations, and more.

With seamless integrations, set up in just a few clicks, you can reduce redundant data entry, increase reporting speeds and accuracy, and watch the business’ growth accelerate.

With Sage Intacct, you can expect to see an average increase in productivity within your finance department of 50%, an average Return on Investment of 250%, and a reduction of your monthly close time of up to 80%.

Sage Intacct has already helped hundreds of restaurant franchise businesses achieve incredible growth.

Learn about just a few of them below: