The short answer: what a multi-site restaurant group accountant costs
A multi-site restaurant group pays from £999 a month for a full outsourced finance function at a London hospitality specialist in 2026/27. That figure covers bookkeeping across every venue, VAT, payroll, tronc, per-site profit and loss, management accounts and the year-end work for the companies in the group. Buy the pieces on their own and the numbers are smaller: hospitality bookkeeping with EPOS integration from £195 a month per site, multi-site payroll from £195 a month, and multi-site consolidation with a KPI dashboard from £245 a month.
Why the spread? Because "a restaurant group" covers a two-site husband-and-wife operation and a twelve-site brand with a central kitchen and four companies. The work scales with both the number of trading sites and the number of legal entities behind them. A group accountant is not charging more per site out of habit. Each extra venue is another bank feed to reconcile, another set of till takings to check, another payroll run, and another slice of the monthly management pack.
One number worth holding onto before we go further: at LOYALS the full group finance function starts at £999 a month, and the individual building blocks start at £195 a month. Everything in this guide sits between those two anchors.
What you are actually paying for across a group
You are paying for the jobs that only appear once you run more than one site. A single restaurant needs bookkeeping, VAT, payroll and a year-end. A group needs all of that plus consolidation across sites and companies, inter-company recharges when a central kitchen supplies the venues, a profit and loss for each site, VAT handled across separate legal entities, and tips applied correctly under the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023. Each of those is a recurring monthly task, which is what the fee reflects.
This is also where a hospitality specialist earns the difference over a high-street firm. Our hospitality accountants integrate the EPOS or till system so daily Z reads reconcile automatically, track gross profit and wage percentage by site against sector norms, and close the month fast enough that you can act on it. The annual accounts and Corporation Tax at the end of the year are the easy part. The value is in the monthly numbers that tell you which venue is quietly losing money while the others carry it.
Five jobs a group accountant does that a single-site one does not
These are the recurring tasks that sit behind the monthly fee for a multi-site group.
Consolidated numbers
Combining every site and company into one view so you see the group result, not five disconnected sets of books.
Inter-company recharges
When a central production kitchen supplies the venues, the recharges between companies have to be posted, priced and evidenced for HMRC.
VAT across entities
Each company has its own VAT position, or the group registers as one VAT group. Getting this wrong is expensive and slow to unwind.
Tronc across all sites
Tips must reach staff in full and be recorded, and a tronc has to run consistently at every venue, not just the flagship.
Per-site profit and loss
A weekly or monthly result for each venue so the group can act on the weak site before it drags the strong ones down.
What moves the fee up or down
Three things move a restaurant group accountant's fee: the number of trading sites, the number of companies in the group, and whether a central production kitchen sits behind the venues. Add a fourth for larger groups, which is how fast you need the numbers. A group that only wants annual accounts pays far less than one that needs a per-site profit and loss on a Monday morning.
Sites drive volume. Every venue adds bank feeds, supplier invoices, till reconciliations and a payroll run. Companies drive complexity. A group that trades through one company is simpler than a group with a separate company per site plus a holding company, because each entity needs its own accounts, its own Corporation Tax return and its own VAT returns. A central kitchen adds inter-company recharges and stock transfers that HMRC expects to see priced and documented.
Here is where the real anchor prices land for a group buying the pieces, or the whole function, at LOYALS in 2026/27.
Consolidation, audit and the small group exemption
Most restaurant groups do not have to file consolidated statutory accounts or have an audit. A small group under the Companies Act 2006 is exempt from both if it meets two of three limits: turnover not more than £15 million, a balance sheet total not more than £7.5 million, and no more than 50 employees on average. Those limits rose for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025, which widened the number of groups that qualify. Plenty of independent groups running three, four or five sites sit comfortably inside them.
What does that mean in practice? It means the companies in your group each file their own accounts at Companies House and there is no legal requirement to bolt them into one consolidated set or pay for an audit. It saves real money. A statutory consolidation and audit for a group that did not need one can add several thousand pounds a year for nothing. You can read the current position on the gov.uk guidance on audit exemptions for private limited companies.
There is a catch worth stating plainly. Being exempt from statutory consolidation does not mean you should run the group without a consolidated view. You still need consolidated management accounts to see the group result, spot the weak site and plan cash. The exemption removes a filing obligation, not the need to actually understand your own numbers. A good group accountant gives you the consolidated management pack every month even though HMRC and Companies House never ask to see it.
Tronc, tips and payroll across every site
Since 1 October 2024 the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires you to pass on 100 percent of tips, gratuities and service charges to workers, with no deductions beyond the tax and National Insurance the law requires. You need a written tipping policy, records of what was collected and how it was shared, and a fair, transparent method at every site. Tribunals must take the statutory Code of Practice into account, so an inconsistent approach across venues is a genuine risk, not a technicality. The government's statutory Code of Practice on distributing tips fairly sets out what "fair and transparent" means.
This is where a tronc earns its place. A tronc is an independent arrangement for sharing tips, run by a troncmaster, and when it is set up correctly the qualifying tips can be paid free of employer and employee National Insurance. Across a group that saving adds up quickly, because tips are a large share of pay in hospitality. The catch is that a tronc has to be genuinely independent and run the same way at every venue. Our payroll and PAYE team runs tronc alongside weekly RTI, mixed rotas and TUPE handovers when you take on a new site, all of which land on the same payroll each week.
VAT deserves a mention here too, because it interacts with structure. Each company in the group has its own £90,000 VAT registration threshold for 2026/27. Where companies are under common control they can register as a single VAT group under section 43 of the VAT Act 1994, file one return and ignore VAT on supplies between members, which is useful when a central kitchen invoices the venues. Whether a VAT group helps depends on your mix of activity, so it is a decision to model rather than a default to reach for.
Here is how the three common approaches actually compare for a multi-site restaurant group:
| What a group needs | DIY / software | Generic accountant | LOYALS specialist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consolidated view across sites and companies | ✗ Manual spreadsheet | ● Year-end only | ✓ Monthly management pack |
| Profit and loss for each individual site | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ Per-site reporting |
| EPOS / till integration and daily reconciliation | ● If you set it up | ✗ | ✓ Built into onboarding |
| Tronc run correctly at every venue | ✗ | ● If asked | ✓ Across all sites |
| VAT and inter-company recharges across entities | ✗ | ● | ✓ Structured and evidenced |
| Open Mon to Sat for urgent group calls | ✗ | ✗ Mon to Fri 9 to 5 | ✓ 10am to 7pm Mon to Sat |
This is why most restaurant groups move from a generalist to a hospitality specialist once they pass their second or third site.
What this means for you: what to check before you choose
If you are pricing an accountant for your group, the useful questions are specific and quick to answer.
- Count your entities, not just your sites. Five sites in one company is a different job from five sites in five companies plus a holding company. Tell any accountant the structure upfront so the quote reflects reality.
- Ask for a per-site profit and loss. If a firm only offers group-level or year-end numbers, you will never see which venue is carrying the others. Per-site reporting is the point of using a specialist.
- Check the tronc is handled across every site. A tronc that runs at the flagship but not the newest site is a compliance gap. Confirm it is applied consistently and recorded.
- Confirm you are not paying for consolidation or audit you do not need. If you are inside the small group limits, you should not be billed for statutory group accounts or an audit unless there is a specific reason.
- Ask how fast month-end closes. Numbers you get nine months later cannot change a decision. A specialist closes month-end within days, not seasons.
- Get the quote in writing. A proper group quote is scoped to your sites and entities, not a round number plucked from the air.
None of this is exotic. It is the difference between an accountant who files your group's paperwork and one who helps you run the group. For a group with real money moving through several tills every day, that difference is worth far more than the fee.