Paul S. Hewitt, CA
I’ve been involved in the restaurant business for over 20 years, both as a chartered accountant advising restaurateurs and as an owner operator. Based in Toronto, I started this blog to help restaurateurs improve their operations with practical advice and information. While I have advised on a variety of different restaurant operations from fast food to fine dining, my focus is mostly in the area of licenced, full-service restaurants.
My CA practice focuses on helping restaurants and small businesses maximize their profitability and minimize their taxes. I offer cost-effective solutions that generate consistent, profitable results. If I may be of assistance in helping you solve vexing problems in your business, please contact me. I may be reached at: bartaxca@gmail.com.
This blog is written for Canadian restaurateurs. My research indicates that there is very little useful information about the administration of taxes that apply to restaurants. In particular, I am most concerned about audits of the various provincial sales taxes (Retail Sales Tax) and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). With Ontario and B.C. announcing that they are about to combine their provincial sales taxes with the GST on July 1, 2010, this poses new risks to restaurateurs.
This blog site will be updated regularly and will provide invaluable assistance to help you protect your restaurant against the unfair audit methods used by Canadian tax authorities. In my experience, it is possible to protect your restaurant from these insidious practices, but it requires a fair amount of meticulous recordkeeping. Most of the information on this blog will be equally applicable to U.S. restaurateurs. However, I recommend that U.S. restaurateurs seek their own professional advisors to tailor the procedures to fit their own tax laws and situation. The best time to start is right now.
If you own a restaurant in Canada, you must take these warnings very seriously. Your survival depends on it!
I’ve started a Linked-in Group for Canadian restaurateurs to discuss important issues. You can join by visiting Linked-in and searching for “Canadian Restaurateur”.
I welcome your comments and questions.
Paul S. Hewitt, CA
Hello – I’ve been asked by the management company of a dozen clubs here in San Francisco to review our protocols to detect and prevent zapper software on our Aloha POS systems.
Since we have no such protocols, my review starts now. I’m having a difficult time finding “white hat” information on zapper software, how to detect and prevent.
If you have any resources you used in your blog story about zappers I’d greatly appreciate it.
No worries if you can’t reply I realize this is a pretty random question to put to you.
Rather than discuss private information on this blog, you can reach me at: bartaxca@gmail.com.
Essentially, you’ll need controls to ensure that unauthorized software has not been installed. You’ll have to set up controls over day end procedures and cash control. You’ll need to monitor margins regularly. There are a few others. Also, you can send in shoppers and have them pay cash. Then, check to ensure that the check register matches the physical receipt.
Hope this helps.