Benchmarking accountants for restaurant project: what do I need to know?

Hi Valerie,

My common law partner and I are currently assessing/ trying to decide on an accountant to ‘follow’ us on our restaurant project. The problem is we don’t understand fully the scope of what they are supposed to help us with in our specific situation.

Could you explain to me:
1) What they could/ are supposed help us with during the “pre-opening” phase of the restaurant? (Ie. validating / certifying our financial plan+ revenue forecast so we can present to a loan broker + banks? Drafting the lease contract for the space?)

2) Post opening: how often should we be speaking to our accountant? On a monthly basis? Quarterly? I imagine monthly services would include a) processing all business related invoices b) HR related services: hiring contracts, paying salaries, pay bulletins

3) On an annual basis, what should they be doing for us? A “bilan / comptes annual”? Revenue forecast? Filing my business tax? Are they supposed to advise us as well if our numbers are not good/ my overhead vs revenue is too high? Some mentioned that they include “tout obligation fiscales” - what do these include?

4) Why do they base an annual service on 13 months? Does this usually start counting once my company is created?

5) Some are prosposing “prestations juridiques en complément de la mission comptable” such as:

• Constitution d’une SAS pour 2 associés
• Rédaction des actes juridiques liés à l’assemblée générale annuelle et démarches de dépôt des comptes annuels à l’INPI : 500 € HT (hors frais de Greffe).
- is it risky to do these via an accountant vs a lawyer

Many thanks,