Since its establishment in 2010, JINYA Holdings has experienced remarkable growth within its restaurant portfolio, and now operates nearly 60 franchise ramen locations as of 2023. The organization’s impressive success led to its founder Tomo Takahashi being recognized in 2022 by Nation’s Restaurant News as one of America’s most influential restaurant CEOs.
Logistical Challenges
The rapid expansion, however, made it challenging for their outsourced accounting firm to keep pace with JINYA Holdings. Consequently, the accuracy, timeliness, and consistency of fiscal reporting fell behind. In some cases, it took JINYA Holdings up to six weeks to receive their financial statements following the close of period.
Finding the Answers
Shortly after being hired as VP of Finance, Joe Cloud prioritized finding a replacement for their accounting services provider. He conducted an exhaustive search in Southern California, and eventually was referred by their auditing firm to Restaurant & Retail Financial Management Group (RRFMG).
RRFMG immediately got to work by migrating JINYA Holdings from QuickBooks to Restaurant365 to give them deeper insights into their financial records in real-time. The migration involved two different entities (a holding company & franchise business), each with separate tax filings and separate financial calendars.
RRFMG was able to seamlessly transition the company’s financials into Restaurant365, first by migrating the corporate restaurant business, then the restaurant’s franchises. Through Restaurant365, RRFMG was able to make financial calendars more consistent across the organization, including having one based on a retail closing cycle, and allowed them to reduce the time it takes to consolidate financials “from hours into seconds.”
With Restaurant365 properly deployed, RRFMG then began populating sales information with real-time data flowing directly from store POS systems, Aloha. This brought Joe Cloud’s team one step closer to addressing one of JINYA Holdings’ biggest priorities: acquiring a real-time understanding of their financials. Prior to using Restaurant365, there was no visibility into that information until their outsourced accounting provider made sales entries at month end.
Next, RRFMG’s Restaurant365-trained staff began regularly processing a number of other accounting tasks including:
- Collecting accounts receivable from credit card merchant processors, and third-party delivery providers, and franchisees
- Paying vendors, reconciling invoice statements, and issuing 1099s
- Booking all expenses
- Cash reconciliations
- Bank statement reconciliations
- Managing the company’s working papers and business filings
"We've saved a controller's salary worth of expenses, but also, we've avoided having to build an internal team, which would be quite a bit more expensive."
Results in the Ramen
Financial statements are now delivered in as little as seven business days following close of period, and JINYA Holdings is as close as they’ve ever been to being able to generate a snapshot of their restaurants’ financial picture on a weekly basis.
Even better, JINYA Holdings has been able to avoid hiring additional in-house accounting staff since engaging with RRFMG and Restaurant365, despite the company’s rapid growth, saving the company an estimated $250,000 per year in salary, and benefits.
RRFMG CEO Wayne Lipschitz highlighted the value of using Restaurant365 as a platform for the firm’s restaurant clients.
“Labor costs are rising, but RRFMG is helping restaurants improve profitability with Restaurant365”, Lipschitz said. “By reducing accounting service expenses for our clients, while simultaneously enabling 360-degree visibility into their operational finances using R365, we‘ve helped hundreds of restaurant units maximize their bottom line.”
Restaurant365, together with its accounting partners like RRFMG, is committed to providing deep insights into restaurant financial data in real-time. Through these partnerships, restaurant operators are able to effectively reduce their food and labor costs without the need for advanced accounting knowledge.
