Cooks, books and tenterhooks
By the end of 2016, both Noel at Portofino and Chris at Casa del Mar had decided that they were ready to begin negotiations to take over their respective restaurants. Noel’s wife Jess was and still is an accountant. She helped her husband wade through figures, profit and loss reports, wage percentages, financial projections and all things that are essential tools for entrepreneurs to understand the state of their business.
In my early days in the restaurant trade, I used something that, at the time was at the forefront of business bookkeeping: The Simplex book. Simple enough if you used it on a daily basis, entering sales and purchases but when it came to understanding the state of the business, this took on a different complexion. There were no automatic reports to tell me what I owed to which supplier at the end of the month or whether the restaurant was making a profit. A computer-whiz friend of mine, Richard Corser came to the rescue. He managed to design me a simple computer version of the Simplex system and tweaked it to build reports automatically. He did a great job, but by the time I began using it, I discovered an excellent accountancy software beginning with the letter Q, that did exactly what I required. While it went through several facelifts and updates, I still used the 1998 version until I retired earlier this year. Don’t you hate it when computer firms bring out a new version when there is nothing at all wrong with the existing one?
The program allowed me to measure business performance at the touch of a button. Initially, I did all my own bookkeeping but, as time went by, I taught the managers to do most of the daily data entries. I have often seen business owners deliver tons of cardboard boxes full of receipts and invoices to their accountants to prepare the accounts at the end of their financial year. All mine got was a memory stick containing the entire year’s business.
Just as Noel resorted to his wife to measure Portofino’s financial viability, Chris and his wife, Laura were fortunate that her father was an accountant. Although Chris and Laura were well aware of how busy Casa del Mar was, David still had to scrutinise the accounts just as thoroughly as Jess had done for Noel. Many a time, busy restaurants have lacked to make a profit due to high overheads, wrong pricing or bad management. In our restaurants’ case, the profit was healthy, and the financial advisers were able to give the green light.
As Christmas 2016 got nearer, the prospective restaurant owners and I shook hands and set a date of April 7th for the takeovers.
We agreed on a small deposit once the contracts were signed and the rest to be paid over four years. Just as I had been helped to start my business thirty-three years previously, I felt that both sets of young people had been loyal over many years, doing a job that is often very demanding and they definitely deserved a break to take their future in their hands.
Early in January 2017, we left our legal teams in charge of drawing up contracts and leases.