Restaurants, cafes & food service
Books and taxes for drive-thru coffee stands.
Drive-thru sales, a pad lease that charges percentage rent once you cross a line, generator fuel, and a tip cup next to the card reader. Gus sorts every one, an accountant checks every transaction, and you get one clear number each month.
- From $197 a month
- An accountant on every transaction
- Cancel whenever
July brought in $5,500. Iced and blended drinks pushed cup and ice cost higher than a typical month, which is normal for peak season, not a sign something is off.
- Square reader batch depositDrive-thru sales
- Coffee bean and syrup orderCoffee and syrup purchases
- Ice and cup orderCups and ice
- Pad lease percentage rent invoicePercentage rent
- Generator fuel deliveryGenerator and propane
Why your books are different
A drive-thru stand's books go wrong in the same five places.
A generalist bookkeeper sees deposits and bills. A drive-thru coffee stand runs off a small leased pad with percentage rent, sometimes off a generator instead of grid power, and flips its whole drink mix between hot and iced seasons. When those pieces blend together, the owner cannot tell a real cost swing from an ordinary month.
-
1
Pad lease and percentage rent get missed
Many stands lease a small pad of land in a shopping center lot with a base rent plus a cut of sales once a threshold is crossed. Without tracking sales against that line, a genuinely good month brings a rent bill nobody expected.
What we doTracks sales against the threshold so percentage rent is expected, not a surprise, and keeps base rent and percentage rent in their own lines. -
2
Generator costs disappear into general utilities
A stand not wired to grid power runs blenders and espresso machines off a generator, and lumped into one utilities line with anything else, the real cost of running off-grid stays invisible.
What we doKeeps generator fuel and propane in their own line, apart from other utility costs. -
3
Tip cup cash and digital tips don't get reconciled
A small booth often runs a cash tip cup alongside a digital tip prompt on the card reader, and if what actually gets split between baristas does not match what both sources report, a gap either shorts staff or disappears.
What we doMatches tip cup counts and digital tip reports against what left the bank for staff, so nothing quietly disappears. -
4
Hot and iced drink seasons blend into one cost number
A stand's ingredient mix flips hard between a winter of hot drinks and a summer of iced and blended drinks with more cups, ice, and waste, and if that swing is not tracked, a summer month's real margin looks the same as winter's when it is not.
What we doTracks drink cost by season so a real shift in ingredient mix is visible instead of guessed at. -
5
A second stand blurs into the first one's numbers
An owner who opens a second stand across town often runs both through one bank account, and without splitting them, neither stand's real sales or cost per location is visible.
What we doKeeps each stand's sales and costs in their own set of books so you can see which location is actually carrying the business.
Your categories
The categories Gus keeps for a drive-thru coffee stand.
Set up once for how the stand earns and what the pad lease actually costs. You never pick a category. He does, and an accountant checks it.
Money in
- Drive-thru salesCard and cash sales rung through the window reader.
- Event and festival bookingsOne-off pop-ups at local events or festivals.
- Gift card salesHeld as a liability until a card is redeemed, not counted as income the day it is sold.
- Merchandise salesBranded cups and bags of beans sold at the window.
Money out
- Coffee and syrup purchasesBeans, syrups, and dairy, kept apart from cups and ice.
- Cups and iceTo-go cups, lids, and ice, tracked separately since iced season uses far more.
- Generator and propaneFuel for a stand not wired to grid power.
- Wages and payroll taxesBarista pay, apart from tip cup and digital tip distributions.
- Base rentThe fixed monthly cost of the leased pad.
- Percentage rentThe cut of sales owed once you cross the lease's threshold.
- Stand equipmentEspresso machines, blenders, and the generator, logged apart from supplies so they get written off right.
What we watch for you
- Sales against rent threshold
How close you are to the sales level where percentage rent kicks in.
- Drink cost percentage
Coffee, syrup, cups, and ice against sales, tracked by season since the mix flips hard.
- Labor cost percentage
Barista wages against sales in a small-footprint operation.
- The set-aside
What you will owe, tracked every month, so tax time holds no surprise.
Ask Gus
Things drive-thru stand owners ask Gus.
Text him like you would text anybody. He answers in plain English, and when a question is above his pay grade, an accountant looks and gets back to you.
Yes, I have been tracking your sales against the threshold all month, so this was expected, not a surprise.
It is, in its own line. Generator fuel is tracked apart from your other costs, so a real jump in usage is easy to spot.
Yes, each stand gets its own set of books, so you can see which one is actually carrying the business, not just the combined total.
The tax side
The tax side of a drive-thru coffee stand.
Most of what goes wrong here is labels: rent that moves with sales, off-grid costs mixed with everything else, and equipment lost inside a supply order.
What your return has to get right
Your accountant signs it, so it gets done right the first time.
- Section 179 on stand equipmentEspresso machines, blenders, and a generator can usually be written off the year you buy them, with 100 percent bonus depreciation for property acquired after January 19, 2025.
- Worker classification for baristasA barista who works your schedule and uses your equipment is almost always an employee, not a contractor, even for a one or two person booth.
- The FICA tip creditBecause tipping is standard at the window, you can often claim a credit for the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare tax paid on tips above the minimum wage portion.
- Form 1099-NEC for seasonal helpAnyone hired outside of payroll to cover a festival booking or a busy stretch, paid $2,000 or more in 2026, gets a 1099-NEC by January 31.
Deductions drive-thru coffee stands miss
Your bookkeeper knows what to look for in your statements. You never have to.
- Generator fuel and maintenance
- Menu board signage
- Drive-thru headset systems
- Insulated to-go cups
- Ice machine maintenance
- Land or pad lease fees
- Uniforms and aprons
- Food handler certification
- Local radio or billboard ads
- Employee shift meals
- Pest control contracts
General information about 2026 federal rules, not advice for your business. Your accountant looks at your actual numbers before anything gets filed.
All year, not just April
A drive-thru stand's year, kept every month.
The drink mix flips with the weather every year. Your taxes come on a schedule. Your team keeps you ahead of both. Every month in between, your bookkeeper closes the books and speaks up the moment something looks off.
- January
Plan the year
Last year's return gets started, the 1099 list for any seasonal help is readied, and you get a monthly set-aside so summer's iced drink rush does not turn into an April surprise.
- April
Filed and signed
Your return is filed and signed. Because the set-aside has been running since January, there is no scramble for cash.
- July
Halfway check
Where you stand at the midpoint of peak iced drink season, and whether sales are closing in on your next percentage rent threshold.
- October
Before the season flips
Before the drink mix flips back to hot season, Gus looks at generator or equipment upkeep worth doing before December.
What you get
What you pay depends on what your business needs, and it does not move after that, busy season or slow. No hourly bills, no surprise invoices, no setup fee.
Book a call- Monthly bookkeeping
Every transaction sorted into categories set up for drive-thru coffee stands. You never categorize a thing.
- An accountant checks every transaction
Real review, every month, before your books close. Not a spot check.
- Your business tax return, filed
Prepared, reviewed, and signed by that same accountant every year.
- The monthly number
What you made, what you spent, what to set aside for taxes.
- Your own bookkeeper
A real person assigned to your business, in the app whenever you need them. No hold music.
- On your books all year
Every month, not just in April. Your team speaks up whenever something is worth your attention.
- Cancel any time
No contract. No cancellation call. Your books are yours.
Straight answers
Questions drive-thru stand owners ask first.
Our stand leases a small pad of land with a base rent plus a percentage once we hit a sales threshold. Can Gus track that?
Yes. Gus tracks your sales against the threshold so percentage rent is expected, not a surprise, and keeps base rent and percentage rent in their own lines.
We run off a generator since the stand is not wired to the grid. Does that get tracked differently?
Yes. Generator fuel and propane are kept in their own line, apart from other costs, so the real cost of running off-grid is visible.
Our tip cup and the card reader's tip prompt both collect for the same barista shift. Can Gus reconcile that?
Yes. He matches what both sources report against what actually left the bank for staff, so a gap gets caught instead of quietly shorting someone.
We do way more iced and blended drinks in summer. Does that change how the books look?
It should, and it does. Drink cost is tracked so a real shift in ingredient mix between hot and iced season shows up, instead of one season's cost getting blended into the other's.
We just opened a second stand across town. Is that a lot more work to track?
Not for you. Each stand gets its own set of books from the bank statements you send, so you can see which location is actually carrying the business.
Is a real accountant checking my books?
Yes. You get your own bookkeeper, Gus does the first pass on every transaction, and an accountant checks every one before your month closes. That same accountant prepares, signs, and files your business return. Goatkeeper is not a CPA firm, and we never pretend a person looked when they did not.
What does it cost, and can I cancel?
It starts at $197 a month, depending on what your business needs. No setup fee, no hourly bills, no contract. Cancel any time from the app, and your books go with you.
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What makes a bookkeeper worth paying for Every business we keep books for
Book a call
Pick a time. That's the whole signup.
Fifteen minutes with a real person on our team. They look at where your books are, tell you straight what it takes to get caught up, and get you set up on the spot if it fits.
- $197 a month to start
- An accountant on every transaction
- Cancel whenever