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CSV: hospitality accounts with BC-correct QBO codes and the food, liquor and equipment splits.
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BC treats restaurants kindly on food and firmly on everything else: meals sell at 5% GST with no provincial tax, ingredients arrive mostly zero-rated, but the range that cooks them and the glassware that serves them pay the full 12%. Add liquor’s private 10% PST regime and the coding map has four territories. This QuickBooks Online chart of accounts marks them all.
The food economy: 5% and Z territory
Food and beverage sales codes GST BC; food for human consumption is PST-exempt in BC, prepared or not, so the menu leaves the kitchen at 5%. Food stock and ingredients codes Z for basic groceries with GST BC flagged for taxable inputs (snack foods, prepared items), and never sees PST at all. That pairing, zero-and-five in, five out, is the profitable heart of BC restaurant coding and the reason a generic Canadian chart miscodes this vertical immediately.
The liquor economy: exempt in, 10% out
Alcohol stock codes GST BC, because liquor bought for resale is PST-exempt against your PST number, leaving just creditable GST on the purchase. The bar then collects the province’s 10% liquor PST on every pour, alongside GST, and the chart’s PST payable liability account accumulates it for the provincial return. Two habits keep this clean: the PST number stays on file with every liquor supplier, and the POS splits liquor sales from food so the 10% maps to its own line.
The hardware economy: 12% territory
Kitchen and bar equipment codes GST/PST BC, the PST capitalizing into the asset and depreciating with it. Smallwares and consumables and the chemical-and-paper side of cleaning and laundry carry the same 12%, their provincial share a straight cost. Liquor and business licences stay Out of scope. Office overheads follow standard BC rules, software and telecom at 12%, insurance exempt, payroll out of scope.
Running the file
- Enable sales tax (the BC codes provision natively), then import the chart under Settings, Import data, Chart of accounts.
- Post daily POS summaries: food at 5%, liquor with its 10% split visible, tips as a liability.
- Reconcile monthly on two fronts: GST to the CRA return, the PST liability to the provincial one.
- Enter distributor invoices line by line; one delivery legitimately spans Z, 5%, and 12%.
- Count the walk-in and the bar monthly, adjusting cost of sales so waste and staff meals stop hiding in food cost.
Consumption stays federal: meals the business eats rather than sells, staff dinners, comps for the table, carry the 50% ITC limitation, noted on their accounts while the stock accounts claim whole.
Renovations deserve a word, because every hospitality space eventually gets one. The contractor’s bill arrives as a service at 5% GST, but the PST on materials is already inside their price, contractors being the consumers of what they install, so the true fit-out cost carries embedded provincial tax you will not see itemized. Budget refits from contractor quotes, not from material lists, and book the whole job to leasehold improvements where its GST claims and depreciation stay traceable.
Hospitality generates more supplier paper per revenue dollar than almost any trade, and BC’s four territories multiply the ways to miscode it. Dext anchors the regulars with rules. ExpenseFlow reads every invoice line, sorts Z from 5% from 12% on the same delivery slip, keeps the liquor exemption working, and posts coded entries into QuickBooks against this chart. Hubdoc files the originals against the entries.
On Xero instead? That build, with the custom rates Xero needs in BC, is at BC hospitality chart of accounts for Xero. The code list is documented in the BC QuickBooks sales tax reference.