Hospitality ERP Consultant, UK

VAT across rooms, food, drink and events

VAT is where UK hospitality finance gets detailed. Accommodation, eat-in food, takeaway items, alcohol, room hire, event packages and long-stay arrangements do not all follow the same treatment, and the government has adjusted rates for parts of the sector at different times. A single bill can therefore include several VAT lines, and package prices such as dinner, bed and breakfast need a defensible apportionment.

The till and PMS decide the treatment at the point of sale. My work is to make sure that decision survives the journey into the ledger. Each product or revenue code is mapped to a supply type and VAT code, takings are posted daily by site with VAT kept separate, and deposits for weddings or conferences are held until the event is invoiced. The ERP then feeds Making Tax Digital returns from data that already reconciles to the tills.

I also build test scenarios for the awkward cases: a function with a deposit taken months earlier, a package split across rooms and food, a refund on a different site from the original sale. The correct treatment for each comes from your accountant or VAT advisor, and I make sure the system can apply it consistently. The general UK picture of VAT and digital records is on my UK ERP consultant page.

Tips, tronc and discretionary service charges

Gratuities matter to staff, and UK rules expect tips to reach workers fairly and transparently. Many operators distribute card tips and discretionary service charges through a tronc arrangement run by a troncmaster, with its own payroll treatment, while some pay them through the main payroll. Which arrangement you use, and how it is documented, is a matter for your payroll and employment advisors.

The system design question is simpler but often neglected. Money collected as tips at the till is not the business's revenue, so it should land in a clearing account, be paid out through the tronc or payroll process, and leave that account at nil when the period closes. Cash tips, card tips and service charges added to bills should be distinguishable, and any deductions or fees the business applies must be visible.

I write the till posting rules, the handoff to whichever payroll or tronc administrator you use, and a monthly reconciliation that shows collected versus distributed by site. That gives the finance director an answer when staff, auditors or the board ask where the money went. It also keeps gross profit and labor percentages honest, because tips no longer inflate sales or wages in the reports managers rely on.

Managed, leased and franchised estates

The pub sector in particular mixes operating models. A group may run some houses under management, let others to tenants or lessees who buy drink through a supply agreement, and franchise its brand to third parties. Hotels add management contracts and leases. Each model earns money differently, and the ERP has to report them separately.

For managed sites the ledger holds full takings, cost of sales, wages and overheads. For leased and tenanted sites it holds rent, supply income on beer and other drinks, recharges for repairs and insurance, and tenant receivables. Franchise income needs fees calculated from reported sales. I design one chart of accounts with an estate type dimension, so the board can see contribution by model without separate spreadsheets.

This structure also helps with property. Freehold and leasehold sites carry fixed assets, dilapidations, refurbishment programs and capital approvals that the operations team rarely tracks. Putting asset registers and capital projects in the same system lets you compare a site's trading with the money spent on it. For groups with several companies behind the estate, my notes on multi-company ERP cover intercompany charging and consolidation, and ERP for hospitality groups describes the wider group model.

Wet and dry stock from cellar to central kitchen

UK operators talk about wet stock for drinks and dry stock for food, and they control them differently. Draught beer is delivered by brewers or wholesalers, often under agreements that set what a site can buy, and yields from kegs are measured against till sales by stocktakers. Spirits and wine follow bottle and measure logic. Food depends on recipes, portions and waste.

I design the purchasing side centrally: approved suppliers, agreed price files, ordering windows by site and delivery checks that capture shortages and credits. Counts happen locally, either by site teams or an external stocktaker, and the ERP needs to accept their results in a consistent format. Gross profit by site is then calculated the same way everywhere, which is what makes comparisons fair.

Where a group runs a central production kitchen, it produces sauces, desserts and prepared items for several restaurants. Production orders, batch costs, use-by dates and transfer prices all sit in the ERP, and each site receives stock at a known cost. Restaurant-level recipe and food cost design is covered on ERP for restaurants, while operators who also manufacture packaged products can read my UK food and beverage ERP page.

Seasons, platform choice and a remote rollout

UK trading follows a clear calendar: coastal and countryside hotels peak in summer, city venues fill with conferences in term time, and December is the busiest month for most pubs and restaurants. Staffing grows and shrinks with it. I plan go-live dates and stocktake changes for quieter weeks, and I make sure the rollout template lets a seasonal site open again without a new setup.

Groups typically arrive with Sage or Xero per company, a separate purchasing tool and spreadsheets for consolidation. Migration covers opening balances per company, tenant and customer accounts, supplier price files, asset registers and the period calendar, whether you report in calendar months or four-week periods. I run this through structured data migration planning.

I put the same UK scripts to Zoho, Odoo, ERPNext and Microsoft Dynamics 365, and to any hospitality-specific product you already have in mind. Workshops run remotely inside the UK working day, with recordings for site managers who work evenings. If you operate hotels, the PMS boundary is explained in hotel ERP; the UK hub gathers my other UK material.