Quebec Restaurant + Hospitality Chart of Accounts for Xero (Free)

Quebec restaurants run the most supervised tills in the country, with Revenu Quebec’s mandatory billing system watching every receipt, and some of the friendliest input economics, since both taxes on what a kitchen buys come back to a registered operator. This Xero chart of accounts is arranged for that combination: airtight sales records, clean stock coding, and the exceptions on their own lines.

Sales under WEB-SRM

Food and beverage sales defaults to QC - GST/QST on Sales: prepared food and drink carry both taxes, invoiced with both registration numbers, and recorded through the WEB-SRM regime that Quebec requires of restaurants and bars. Bookkeeping’s job is reconciliation: one daily summary posted from the POS, tied monthly to the system’s records and the combined tax report. Tips pass through as a liability; gift cards wait as liabilities until redemption taxes them.

Stock, mostly zero in, taxed out

Food stock and ingredients defaults to the custom Zero Rated rate, basic groceries being zero-rated under GST and QST alike, with the 14.975% pair flagged for the taxable inputs every distributor mixes in. Alcohol stock carries the pair with full recovery on resale inventory, the 50% limitation being about consumption rather than stock, and the RACJ permit that lets you pour sits in liquor and business licences at Out of Scope. Kitchen and bar equipment claims both taxes and tracks for capital cost allowance.

The in-zero, out-both asymmetry is gentler than it looks: no PST-style cost lodges anywhere, and the coding exists to keep recoveries accurate rather than to protect margins from a non-recoverable layer.

The operating layer

Cleaning and laundry and smallwares and consumables run at the pair with full recovery. Meals and entertainment and staff events, the consumption accounts, carry the stereo 50% haircut under both taxes. Insurance arrives exempt with Quebec’s premium tax as cost. Payroll runs out of scope with Quebec’s own source deductions beside the federal ones.

Setup and service rhythm

1. Create the four custom rates (Tax menu, Tax settings, Tax rates), then import via Accounting, Chart of accounts, Import, checking the preview’s zeros land on the stock accounts.
2. Map the POS to one daily summary: food and drink at the pair, tips aside, and reconcile to the mandatory-billing records monthly.
3. Enter distributor invoices line by line; zero-rated flour beside taxed cola on one slip is the normal case.
4. Keep both registration numbers on everything customer-facing.
5. Count the walk-in and bar monthly, adjusting cost of sales so waste and staff meals stay visible where menus are priced.

Renovations arrive as contractor services at the pair with recoveries intact, another quiet advantage over the PST provinces where fit-out tax embeds permanently.

Terrasse season and festival pop-ups keep the same grammar with temporary paperwork: the seasonal permit fees join the licence account at Out of Scope, the rented tents and portable bars claim their pair like any equipment rental, and the pop-up’s sales flow through the same mandatory-billing discipline as the dining room. Treat each seasonal venue as a tracking category and September’s question, whether the terrasse actually made money, has an answer instead of an argument.

The paper flow of a kitchen never slows, and Quebec adds a second tax and a billing regime to every shift. Hubdoc captures the documents. ExpenseFlow reads each invoice line, splits zero-rated stock from taxed inputs on the same delivery, keeps permits out of scope and consumption at its half-recovery, and posts coded entries into Xero against this chart. Dext rules the broadline distributors into consistency.

The QuickBooks build is at Quebec hospitality chart of accounts for QuickBooks; the rate story is in the Quebec Xero tax rates reference.