Running a hospitality business might seem exciting from the outside, but look beyond the menu and you’ll often find an owner struggling to balance staffing, customers and cash flow. As accountant Phool Ashraf (FCCA) says, “I’ve had clients crying on calls.” For an industry built on passion and precision, life for hospitality businesses is often fragile and chaotic.
That’s where Gains Accountants comes in. For the past ten years, Phool and her team have guided multiple restaurant and hospitality businesses into a period of growth. “I've been working as an accountant for 17 years, and… I would say over 90% of my time has been with hospitality,” Phool explains. “My husband loves food, and I love serving food. I love having people around the table.” Combining her talent for accounting, business sense and passion for food seemed like a winning combination when it came to setting up Gains, having spent so much time around restaurants and cafes, Phool not only understood the issues affecting this type of business, she could offer them a solution. “We actually understand what's going on in the business and then advise them on a monthly, and sometimes fortnightly basis, on what actions they should take.”
The issue isn’t proprietors' lack of effort or a lack of demand. It’s a lack of systems. Many of the businesses that come to Gains don’t have a clear structure in place. Typically, money comes in immediately but might be delayed by 30 or 90 days going out, with clear foresight of these upcoming payments, many businesses fall into a cash-flow trap. The multiple moving parts and human-led processes make it almost impossible to see what’s coming, leading to constant firefighting and owners who feel like they have no time to step back and regain control. And this is where Apron can offer a clearer picture.
Organising growth
Digital technologies sit at the heart of Gains’ approach, allowing the firm to go beyond traditional accounting into a more advisory role. By integrating tools like Apron, Gains, and their clients can finally see their profit margins, cash flow and the overall health of their operations. It means the team can guide decision-making instead of simply reporting.
For hospitality businesses, a clear short-term insight is crucial to removing stress. Apron gives hospitality users real-time insight, allowing them to instantly see where pain points are and take swift action to resolve them, as Phool puts it, “it has streamlined processes further.”
By consolidating payments, capturing invoices and receipts and making it easier to manage staff expenses in one place, Apron reduces risk and brings the structure needed to take hospitality owners from a place of survival to one of opportunity, unlocking financial and time freedom, which in turn enables mental freedom.
Once businesses achieve stable margins, Gains can advise and support clients through the next phase of their business journey, be it scaling, raising investment or expanding sites. As Phool says, “we take a business from their startup mode… and now some of our clients have over 18 sites in London.”
It’s a great example of how the right mix of technology and a real passion for the food industry can come together to build successful, growing hospitality businesses.
