Franchise accounting, compared Kite vs restaurant accounting software.
Restaurant accounting software gives your team a better tool — invoice capture, inventory, recipe costing, labour — and leaves the accounting to whoever uses it. Kite is the accounting done: software plus a named accounting lead who closes the month, with royalty, delivery and leases handled. Choose software if you have an accounting team and need inventory; choose Kite if you need the team.
Side by side
| Kite | restaurant accounting software | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $350 per operating location per month, flat at every size; no add-ons | A per-location subscription, plus the staff or firm who operate it |
| What is included | Payables and bill payment, bank reconciliation, card, cash and delivery deposits matched nightly, royalty and ad fund from your agreement, leases under ASC 842, the close, franchisor-format reports | Invoice capture, inventory, recipe costing and reporting; the close and reconciliations are yours |
| Who does the work | AI agents draft the books every night; a named accounting lead approves and closes | Your own staff or your outside bookkeeper, in the software |
| Delivery payouts | Every payout matched to its orders and to the bank, every fee booked as its own cost | Depends on integrations and on someone reconciling them |
| Royalty basis | Computed weekly on the brand’s calendar, with the agreement’s definition quoted beside the charge | Reports of sales; computing and checking the royalty is left to the user |
| Leases | Read from the signed lease; ASC 842 schedules, entries and disclosures included | Usually not included |
| Close cadence | Books current every morning; the month closed the week after period end | Whenever your team closes it |
When restaurant accounting software is the better choice
- You need perpetual inventory, recipe costing and food-cost variance — Kite does not do inventory.
- You already have an accounting team and want to give them better software.
- Your priority is operations — ordering, labour scheduling, food cost — more than the books.
When Kite is
- You do not have, or do not want to hire, the people to run accounting software.
- Royalty, delivery reconciliation and lease accounting are where your books go wrong.
- You want the month closed by someone accountable for it, not a better place to close it yourself.
Questions
Questions operators ask when comparing.
Can we use both?
Yes. Operators keep a restaurant operations tool for inventory and ordering and use Kite for the books; food, beverage and paper cost come from the bills and the register either way.
Does Kite do inventory or prime cost?
Not inventory. Food, beverage and paper cost come from the bills and the register; a perpetual inventory ledger is not built.
Which POS 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.
Start with a few stores.
Four fields. A person replies within one business day.