Restaurant bookkeeping in Koreatown

Short answer: Restaurant bookkeeping in Koreatown books each night's sales to the business day they belong to, even when card batches settle after midnight. Sales tax collected is kept out of the gross receipts figure for the City of Los Angeles business tax renewal. Payroll is checked against the City of Los Angeles minimum wage, and sales tax against the 10.25 percent countywide rate that started October 1, 2026.

When the night ends after midnight

A barbecue place or a pocha that serves until 2 a.m. has a business day that does not match the calendar. Many POS systems let you set the end of the business day, so a 1:30 a.m. check counts toward the night before. The card processor may batch on its own clock, and the bank deposit lands one or two days later.

If the books follow the deposit date, Friday and Saturday sales drift into the wrong days, cash over and short never agrees, and the last night of December can slip into the next year. We set the books to the POS business day, then match deposits back to the nights they came from.

City of Los Angeles business tax for a restaurant

Every Koreatown address falls within the City of Los Angeles, so each business needs a Business Tax Registration Certificate and a yearly renewal on the prior year's gross receipts. February is renewal month. If worldwide gross receipts were $100,000 or less, the small business exemption is available, and it is lost when the renewal is late.

The Office of Finance taxes retail sales at $1.27 per $1,000 of gross receipts, and its retail compliance guide excludes sales tax from the receipts the city taxes. A restaurant that reports the POS total with tax included pays city tax on money that was never its own. We keep tax collected out of sales every month, so the gross receipts figure is clean when February comes.

Your CPA confirms the classification and figures for your renewal. The Office of Finance publishes current rates and due dates each year.

Sales tax and wages changed this year

• CDTFA lists the Los Angeles County rate rising from 9.75 percent to 10.25 percent on October 1, 2026, which applies in the City of Los Angeles.
• Tax collected before and after that date is kept apart, so the fourth quarter return can be checked against the POS.
• The City of Los Angeles minimum wage rose to $18.42 an hour on July 1, 2026, based on the city's Office of Wage Standards notice.
• Payroll runs that straddle July 1 are checked for the new rate, and the jump in labor cost is marked on the monthly report so it is not mistaken for overstaffing.

What else a Koreatown kitchen needs in the books

• Meat, produce and dry goods from Korean food distributors coded by category, with cash and check purchases recorded on the day they are paid.
• Banchan and other complimentary dishes counted in food cost, so cost as a share of sales is honest.
• Delivery orders kept apart from dine in, since a late night delivery menu often has its own margin.
• Tips held as a liability and paid out through payroll, apart from sales.
• Each restaurant in its own books when one owner runs several, with money moved between them recorded in both.

A typical cleanup: the year that ended on January 2

Picture a barbecue restaurant near Western Avenue that opens until 2 a.m. For two years its books were built from bank deposits. Card batches from New Year's Eve landed in early January, so a strong December looked weak. The city business tax renewal was figured from total deposits, which included sales tax, card payouts from the prior year and a transfer from the owner's second restaurant.

We rebuilt sales from daily POS reports by business day and matched every deposit back to its night. Sales tax collected moved to a liability, and the transfer was recorded as a loan between the two companies. The CPA received a gross receipts figure tied to the POS, with tax and transfers taken out, for each calendar year.

How the month runs

1. Pull the nightly reports Daily POS summaries by business day, delivery app statements and card processor batch reports.
2. Match deposits to nights Each deposit is traced to the night it came from, with fees and tax on their own lines.
3. Check payroll Wages are checked against the current city rate, and tips tie to what was paid out.
4. Send the numbers Profit and loss by restaurant, food and labor cost against sales, and year to date gross receipts for the city.

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