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CSV of hospitality accounts with Xero GST defaults and the ingredient-level exceptions.
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Feeding people in Alberta means running the one genuinely tricky consumer-goods tax boundary in a province that otherwise has almost none: groceries in at zero, meals out at 5%, with snack food and pop switching sides depending on what they are. This Xero chart of accounts keeps that boundary at the account level, where it can be coded at delivery-slip speed.
Stock accounts with opinions
Food stock and ingredients defaults to the custom Zero Rated rate, because basic groceries are taxable at 0% across Canada, and lists AB - GST on Purchases for the exceptions the distributor mixes into every order: confectionery, carbonated drinks, prepared items. Alcohol stock stands alone at 5% with its note debunking the usual worry: resale inventory earns a full input tax credit, and the AGLC markup is baked into wholesale pricing rather than appearing as a codable tax line. Kitchen and bar equipment holds the capital purchases whose GST claims and capital cost allowance both want a clean history.
Revenue mirrors it: food and beverage sales carries AB - GST on Sales, because everything prepared and sold in Alberta, dine-in or takeout, is a 5% supply.
The operating layer
- Liquor and business licences code Out of Scope; AGLC and municipal fees are regulatory charges with no credit inside.
- Cleaning and laundry and smallwares and consumables run at 5%, claimable, and constant.
- Staff events and welfare plus meals and entertainment carry the 50% ITC warning; consumption is not resale.
- Insurance is exempt, and in Alberta the premium arrives with no provincial tax rider at all.
Before the accounts, three rates
Xero’s Canadian edition seeds only the provincial pairs, so the zero-rated ingredient default cannot exist until you create it: add Zero Rated, Exempt, and Out of Scope as custom 0% rates under the Tax menu, Tax settings, Tax rates, then import via Accounting, Chart of accounts, Import. Xero resolves each line’s tax by contact, then inventory item, then account default, which means distributor-level defaults you add later can sharpen, not fight, this chart.
Tips and gift cards, the two revenue impostors
Two flows move through a till without being sales. Tips belong to staff: they pass through as a liability, never touch the revenue account, and carry no GST. Gift cards are deferred revenue: selling one creates a liability with no tax event, and the GST arrives when the card buys an actual meal, at the 5% the meal carries. Post both through their own liability accounts and the daily summary stays a clean statement of what the kitchen actually sold. Mixing either into food and beverage sales inflates revenue, miscounts tax, and makes the POS reconciliation quietly impossible.
Service rhythm
- Post daily sales as one POS summary per day, taxable total plus GST, and reconcile monthly to the POS tax report.
- Code broadline invoices line by line; a single delivery mixing zero-rated and 5% lines is Tuesday, not an exception.
- Keep bar purchases in alcohol stock even when they ride a general supplier statement.
- Calendar the licence renewals; out-of-scope is also out-of-credit, so nothing needs hunting there.
The back-of-house paper flow decides whether the books stay true, and it never slows down. Dext holds distributor coding steady with supplier rules. ExpenseFlow reads every invoice line, splits zero-rated stock from taxable items on the same document, keeps licences out of scope, and posts coded entries into Xero against this chart. Hubdoc archives the paperwork the health of the file depends on.
Running the kitchen on QuickBooks? The mirrored build is at Alberta hospitality chart of accounts for QuickBooks; rate mechanics are in the Alberta Xero tax rates reference.