What is a Restaurant Budget Template?
A restaurant budget template is a customizable spreadsheet that you can use to organize all your restaurant expenses in a simple and visual format. It will help you determine if you are budgeting correctly, and inform your future spending decisions to increase profitability.
A restaurant budget is essential for tracking business expenses. At the same time, creating a restaurant budget from scratch can feel overwhelming because it requires identifying all your restaurant expenses and figuring out how to calculate if you are sticking to your budget. That’s where our downloadable restaurant budget template can be useful!
What Does Your Free Restaurant Budget Template Include?
Your free restaurant budget template for Excel or Google Sheets comes in a spreadsheet format, with sections that are useful for restaurateurs who want to manage their budget. These sections include:
Category of Expenses
The category section describes the categories of restaurant expenses. For example, common expenses include the cost of goods sold, rent, utilities, and more.
Description of Expenses
The description section is where you can add specific line items that fall into each category. For example, under the cost of goods sold category, you can list how much you have budgeted to cover the direct costs of any items you sell, including food, soft drinks, alcohol, and even merchandise.
Budgeted Cost
The budget section is where you can add the maximum amount you would like to spend for each description. For example, what is your maximum monthly budget for marketing expenses?
Actual Cost
The actual section is where you would add how much you have spent in reality on each line item. For example, in the monthly restaurant budget template in Excel, you would enter “$16,000” if you spent $16,000 on payroll in the past month.
Cost Difference
The difference section calculates the difference between your actual expenses and the amount you budgeted. This area is crucial for understanding your spending habits because it shows you whether you are overspending or underspending based on the amount you budgeted.
Notes
The notes section is where you can write how you can make better decisions to improve your spending habits or add other important notes. After all, your downloadable restaurant budget template should be a helpful tool for identifying where you may be overspending or underspending, and how you can adjust your budget accordingly.
Monthly and Annual Budget Tabs
There are separate tabs for you to track your monthly and annual budgets to ensure you have a holistic view of your restaurant’s finances.
Pro tip: if you pay annually for certain goods and services, you can track those in your annual budget tab, as well as in the month you paid the bills to account for the monthly spending fluctuations you’ll see.
What Are the Benefits of Using a Restaurant Budgeting Template?
Now that you have an understanding of what the restaurant budgeting template includes, here are a few of the benefits you might experience from using it:
Keeping Track of How Much You Spend
As a restaurant owner, you might be curious to learn how much you spend to keep your business running. Every month, restaurateurs pay essential fees, like electricity, rent, and inventory. In addition, you may spend part of your budget on non-essential items like TV streaming services or marketing. With so many expenses, it’s easy to forget which items you should include in your budget.
This free online restaurant budget template helps you organize your expenses in an intuitive and visual format that’s easy to understand. By organizing all of your expenses in one place, you can figure out which items you are spending significantly more on, and where you could save.
For example, let’s say you see you are spending too much on your electricity bills. You could then identify what you could do differently to save money, like upgrading to more energy-efficient kitchen equipment. Or if you went over budget on hourly workers, you can compare your schedule with previous month’s to better forecast labor for your restaurant in the coming months.
Set Financial Goals for the Future
Setting financial goals can be difficult when you’re starting from scratch. That’s why it’s helpful to have a baseline of how much you are spending and on which specific items. This way, you can start to make more informed decisions about where to save money by comparing your future spending plans with your previous spending history.
Thankfully, this free restaurant budget template includes both a monthly and annual restaurant budgeting template, so you can evaluate whether you are meeting your budget goals on a short or long-term basis. An annual budget may be especially useful if you experience monthly or seasonal changes in restaurant cash flow. Then, you can use your restaurant budget template to set monthly and annual benchmarks against which your restaurant can measure improvements in managing your budget.
Continuously Improve Your Financial Management
Your restaurant budget template is a living document you can update anytime. In other words, you can continue to update your restaurant budget template with the latest information so you get a more accurate picture of your spending. Not to mention, regularly updating your budget can help you spot problems and remedy any issues as soon as they arise.
It’s also important to note that a restaurant budget template does not track historic revenue or sales. If you want to take full control of your cash flow and profits, you should consider using other restaurant spreadsheets in tandem with your budget template.
If you’re ready to start managing your business expenses, now is a great time to start! Download your free restaurant budget template today to start tracking.
