An AI CFO for
restaurants.
Restaurants live on prime cost, labor and the monthly nut, and they get paid at the register, not on invoice. Pick the restaurant lineup and Wauvel leads with the numbers a restaurant runs on, read from your QuickBooks books every day.
By Blake Ekelund, founderCFO-level work through two acquisitions
- Prime cost, labor, rent
- No receivables clutter
- $99/mo, everything included
Your Command Center, first cards
Sell now, paid now- 01
Cash. Cash on hand, where the next 13 weeks take it, how long it lasts, and what you're burning.
- 02
Revenue. Revenue against the same period last year, the last twelve months, and the one thing to watch.
- 03
Prime cost. Cost of sales plus labor as a share of sales — the number a restaurant or café lives by.
- 04
Labor cost. What you spend on people — payroll, benefits, contractors and direct labor — as a share of every sales dollar.
- 05
Rent & occupancy. Rent, utilities and facilities as a share of sales — the fixed cost a location has to earn back.
- 06
Break-even. The monthly revenue that covers your costs at your current margin, and how far above or below it you're running.
- 07
Profit & loss. Net income against last year, the last twelve months, the single biggest reason it moved, and the one thing to watch.
- 08
Inventory. How many days of stock you're holding, how fast it turns, and the cash sitting on the shelf.
Then the balance sheet, cash flow and watch-outs. Reorder or swap any card.
The numbers a restaurant runs on.
The cards a restaurant owner checks first, built from the accounts you already keep. Where the books can't support one (no cost of sales booked, say), it steps aside instead of showing an empty card.
Prime cost
Cost of sales plus labor as a share of sales, month by month, with a flag when it runs above the 60–65% most restaurants aim for.
Labor
Payroll, benefits and kitchen wages as a share of sales — including labor booked in cost of sales, which a plain P&L splits apart.
Rent & occupancy
Rent, utilities and facilities as a share of sales: the fixed cost each location has to earn back.
Break-even
The monthly sales that cover your costs at today's margin, and how far above or below it you're running.
Cash, 13 weeks out
Payroll, vendor bills and recurring spend laid out week by week, so the slow month after the holidays shows up before it arrives.
Inventory
When you track it in QuickBooks: days of stock on hand and the cash sitting in the walk-in.
What it can't see.
Covers and ticket average
Those live in your POS, not QuickBooks; it works from the sales your books record.
Food cost by menu item
It reads cost of sales by account, not by recipe or plate.
Your schedule
Labor is read from payroll as booked, not from the scheduling app.
Your bookkeeping
If sales or purchases are posted late, it will tell you so, but someone still has to fix them.
Wauvel: $99 a month, everything included — not $150–400 an hour.Free for 14 days. No card to start.
Connect QuickBooks →Go deeper.
The plain-English guide: what an AI CFO does, what it costs and how to pick one.
More on AI CFOs
Questions, answered.
Does an AI CFO track prime cost?
Wauvel does, when your books separate cost of sales and labor. It adds the two, shows them as a share of sales month by month, and flags it when prime cost runs above the 60–65% most restaurants aim for.
Does it connect to my POS?
Not directly. Wauvel reads QuickBooks Online, so it sees the sales your POS posts there. Covers and ticket average stay in your POS reports.
Why doesn't the restaurant lineup show receivables?
Because customers pay at the register, there's usually nothing to chase, and an empty receivables card is just noise. The bills you owe stay one click away from the cash card.
Can it help me plan for a slow season?
Yes. The 13-week cash forecast lays out payroll, rent and vendor bills week by week, so you can see how low cash gets in a slow stretch and test a what-if before it arrives.
How much does an AI CFO for a restaurant cost?
Wauvel CFO ($99/mo, or $990/yr) is your whole finance function: unlimited reports, the live dashboard, a 13-week cash forecast, books watch-outs, alerts to email, Slack, or Teams, and an AI CFO that remembers your business month to month and that you can ask anything. You start with a 14-day free trial. No card to begin, nothing charged, and if you do nothing when it ends the trial simply stops.
See an AI CFO on your own numbers.
You start with a 14-day free trial. No card to begin, nothing charged, and if you do nothing when it ends the trial simply stops.
Wauvel makes an AI CFO for small businesses on QuickBooks. Costs are typical published ranges, updated October 15, 2026.