HOSPITALITY
Hospitality CPA Firm: Strategic Accounting & Tax Solutions for Restaurants and Hotels
Hospitality runs on tight margins. A 1% shift in prime cost or occupancy can flip a profitable month into a losing one, and the financial complexity, such as tip reporting, multi-unit sales tax, and seasonal cash flow swings, only complicates things. The hospitality industry demands a level of specificity that most generalist CPA firms aren’t aware of.
We’re a specialized hospitality CPA firm that understands what’s happening in your operation before you have to explain it. Our restaurant accounting and hotel tax planning services extend through year-end filings and give you real-time visibility into your results. No matter if you run a single-location concept or a multi-state franchise group, our hospitality financial advisory practice helps you make decisions based on financial data.
Specialized services for our Hospitality Industry clients include:
Specialized Restaurant & Bar Accounting
Prime cost: the two biggest expenses. Cost of Goods Sold and labor are the most telling numbers in a restaurant’s P&L. Industry benchmarks put a healthy prime cost at 60% or below, but tracking it requires clean data. We help you set up the right reporting structure so that number is always current.
Tip reporting is one of the most mismanaged areas in restaurant payroll. We provide expert management of the FICA Tip Credit (Section 45B), handling the documentation and compliance required to secure the credit, including managing federal and state tip-pooling regulations that continue to shift.
Manual sales reconciliation is slow and error-prone. We integrate your point-of-sale system directly into your accounting software, so daily sales data flows accurately, which means cleaner books and faster insight.
Hotel & Lodging Financial Management
The Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI) is the reporting standard that makes hotel financials comparable across brands and ownership structures. We implement USALI-based reporting so your statements reflect what lenders, operators, and investors expect to see.
Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) and Average Daily Rate (ADR) tell you more about your hotel’s health than topline revenue alone. We build the analytical layer that connects those metrics to your seasonal cash flow forecasting, so you’re planning for slow periods rather than reacting to them.
Brand-mandated Property Improvement Plans can represent significant capital commitments, often on timelines that don’t match with your cash position. We manage depreciation schedules and CapEx reserve planning to keep you prepared for PIPs without disrupting operations or straining liquidity.
Hospitality Tax Planning & Credits
You’re likely underutilizing two tax credits. When properly documented and claimed, they can reduce your federal tax liability.
FICA Tip Tax Credits
Under Section 45B of the Internal Revenue Code, you can claim a credit equal to your share of FICA taxes paid on tips that exceed the federal minimum wage. For a high-volume restaurant, this credit can run into thousands of dollars annually. The catch is documentation. You need accurate, well-organized tip records to support the claim.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)
If you hire from WOTC target groups, including veterans, long-term unemployed individuals, and people receiving certain government assistance, you’re sitting on a credit most operators miss. The WOTC provides a federal tax credit of up to $9,600 per qualifying hire, but capturing it requires screening applicants before or at the point of hire and filing within 28 days. DHA helps you capture that credit without adding friction to hiring.
Sales & Use Tax Defense
Working in more than one city or state can trigger sales tax obligations you didn’t expect. We check where you owe, flag what needs to be registered, and have the paperwork ready if a state comes asking questions.
Franchise & Multi-Unit Advisory
Multiple locations mean the numbers at each unit tell a different story. As your CPA for franchise operations, we go beyond consolidated financials to help you understand what’s driving performance differences across your portfolio.
Unit-level benchmarking compares labor spend, waste, and margin across locations to surface the outliers. When one location is running a 65% prime cost and another at 58%, at DHA, we help you identify whether that’s a staffing issue, a purchasing problem, or something else entirely.
To maintain compliance with your franchise agreement, your financial reporting must correspond with the franchisor’s explicit criteria, covering brand-mandated accounting formats and royalty fee calculations.
We manage that layer so your reporting satisfies both your franchisor and your own management needs.
When it’s time to consider an exit, recapitalization, or ownership transition, our team provides pre-sale financial preparation and tax-efficient structuring to position you for the best outcome.
Why Hospitality Leaders Choose DHA
You need a CPA who understands that a Saturday night rush, a lease negotiation, and a quarterly tax estimate aren’t separate conversations; they’re connected. You’ll have support throughout the hospitality lifecycle, from initial build-out to multi-unit expansion and eventual succession planning. Our advisors understand the financial realities of an industry where percentage points matter.
You won’t spend the first hour of every meeting re-explaining your business. We integrate with the technology you already use, automate the reporting that shouldn’t be manual, and provide monthly or quarterly Pulse Checks on your prime costs and margins.
Our hospitality clients receive direct access to senior partners who understand the core of the service industry, meaning you receive timely answers, fewer handoffs, and real-world advice.