Restaurant franchise accounting Accounting for Church’s Chicken franchisees. Five and five, on every sale.
Church’s Texas Chicken franchisees pay a 5% royalty and a 5% advertising contribution on sales, as listed in the brand’s franchise directory entry, so a tenth of sales goes to the franchisor’s two charges. With both on the same basis, the definition of sales in your agreement — what it does with delivery, discounts and gift cards — moves both at once. Kite keeps those rules for Church’s operators.
Operators of this brand run their back office on Kite
What the Church’s Chicken agreement charges
| Fee | Amount | Charged on | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royalty | 5%[1] | Sales, as the agreement defines them | Per the franchise agreement |
| Advertising | 5%[1] | Sales, as the agreement defines them | Per the franchise agreement |
The rules that change the books
Two charges, one definition
With the royalty and the advertising contribution on the same basis[1], every mapping decision — whether delivery counts at menu price, whether combo discounts are excluded — is made twice in one move. Keep the agreement’s definition beside both calculations.
Read your own year
Directory listings lag the filings. The rate that binds you is the one in the agreement you signed, and it can differ from what a new franchisee signs today.
Where Church’s Chicken books go wrong
The delivery payout that never landed
A marketplace statement shows the orders; the deposit two days later is short, or never arrives. Booked from the bank, the missing money looks like a slow week. Booked from the statement, it is a clearing balance with a store and an amount.
The fee netted before the deposit
Marketplaces take their commission before they pay out. A store that books the deposit as sales hides the commission inside net sales and reports the wrong figure on the royalty basis.
The day restated after the royalty was paid
An offline register syncs late, a void is processed the next morning, and a day already reported to the franchisor changes. The difference belongs on the next royalty payment as its own line, not in an edit to the one already debited.
Questions
Questions Church’s Chicken operators ask.
Which point-of-sale systems does Kite read?
Toast live; Square, Clover and NCR Aloha by daily export; any system that exports a day of sales by store can come in as a file.
Do you reconcile delivery?
Yes. Uber Eats over its API; DoorDash and Grubhub from the statements they email. Orders are matched to payouts and payouts to deposits, with every fee booked as its own cost.
Can we start with a few stores?
Yes. Two to five stores through one full month-end close, beside your current bookkeeper, at the same price.
Sources
- [1]Church’s Texas Chicken franchise listing — Entrepreneur Franchise Directory · a directory reporting the filing
Start with a few stores.
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