How should a food truck document cash sales, commissary fees, and fuel on the move?

What should your own sales record show after each service?

IRS Publication 583 says to keep supporting documents that show the amounts and sources of your gross receipts, and lists documents such as cash register tapes, deposit slips, receipt books and credit card charge slips. A cash sale without a register produces none of them, so you write the record. Publication 583's illustration of one business's records, which it says is not a recommendation, includes a daily summary that accounts for cash at the end of the day over the change and petty cash fund at the start; a starting float and a closing count give your sheet the same check.

Number your order tickets, write the amount charged on each, and mark how it was paid: cash, card or through an organizer. Write one paper sheet per service period (a lunch shift and an evening event are two) as soon as service ends, recording the following:

• Date, place and hours. Note the pitch or event and when you opened and closed.
• Starting float. Count it before the first sale; never assume yesterday's figure.
• Cash tickets. Add up their amounts.
• Card tickets. Add them up, copy gross sales and refunds from the card reader's report for the same hours if your reader can report by time (otherwise copy the day's figures onto the day's last sheet and compare them with all that day's card tickets), and write the reason for any difference.
• Sales tax. If you collect it, write how much of the cash tickets and of the card tickets was sales tax, on separate lines. Recording the sales tax you collect so it is not counted as sales is a separate question.
• Voids and comps. List each canceled ticket and each meal given away, at menu price, with the reason, and keep the canceled tickets.
• Paid-outs. List each amount taken from the cash box, with its receipt put in the box.
• Closing count. Count the cash after the last sale, before anything is removed.
• Over or short. Compare the count with the float plus cash tickets, minus paid-outs.
• Who and when. Sign with the name of whoever counted and wrote the sheet, and the time.

For example, a 200.00 float, cash tickets of 1,265.00 and 85.40 paid out for buns should leave 1,379.60. A count of 1,381.60 is 2.00 over: write that down instead of changing either figure. An overage can also be a cash sale you forgot to ticket. Counting a cash box and the general method for a cash-sales record are separate questions.

How does your sheet fit the card reader's report and an organizer's statement?

Your sheet is your record; the reader's report and an organizer's settlement statement are other parties' records of some of the same sales. Reconcile them for the same service, explaining each difference rather than choosing a figure.

For cards, compare the card tickets with the reader's gross sales less refunds. Say on another day the card tickets add up to 642.00 and the reader shows 627.00: the 15.00 is an order whose card was declined and which the customer then paid in cash. Move that ticket to cash, which also explains a 15.00 overage in that day's count. Keep gross card sales, refunds and fees as separate figures, not just the payout: the IRS's instructions for Form 1099-K define the gross amount on that form without regard to adjustments for fees, refunded amounts or any other amounts. Tying a payout to the sales it covers is a separate question.

When an organizer collects from customers and pays you later, keep its settlement statement as a primary record of those sales and of everything deducted, and check it against your own tickets for the same event:

Here the 30.00 is two 15.00 orders that the organizer's system shows as refunded; note that on the sheet. Raise any difference you cannot explain with the organizer in writing, and file the reply with the statement. Check each deduction against the terms you kept, too: the share-of-sales fee at the rate in the terms, applied to the statement's gross sales, and the pitch fee as agreed and not also paid by invoice. Raise any difference in writing the same way. Match the 2,427.50 payment to the statement's lines, so each amount is recorded once.

What should you keep from events and venues?

For each event, keep the following:

• The terms. Keep the application, contract or emailed terms stating the pitch fee, the share of sales and other charges such as power or cleanup.
• Invoices and payment records. Keep them for every fee you pay directly.
• The settlement statement. Keep it for every fee deducted, because a deducted fee never appears as a payment in your bank.
• Your day sheet. File it with the statement it was reconciled to.

IRS Publication 583 says proof of payment of an amount, by itself, does not establish that you are entitled to a tax deduction, and that you should also keep other documents to show you incurred the cost; the terms show what each fee was for. Keep each deducted fee on its own line, as the statement shows it, and code it as an event fee, not as food cost, where it would make a poor event look like an expensive menu.

Which commissary documents show what the charge covers?

A recurring debit shows that you paid the commissary, not what the payment bought. IRS Publication 583 says supporting documents for expenses should show the amount paid and that the amount was for a business expense; the agreement covers the second part. Keep the following:

• The signed agreement. Keep it with every renewal and rate change, since it states what the charge covers, such as kitchen hours, storage, parking, water, power and waste or grease disposal.
• Each invoice or statement. File it with the agreement, by period.
• The payment record. Keep the bank or card line for each invoice.

What else you keep depends on how the commissary charges:

How do you record fuel and supply runs on the move?

Driving fuel moves the truck; propane and generator fuel run the kitchen while it is parked. They are often bought at one stop, so split them when you buy:

• Separate transactions. Pay for road fuel, generator fuel and propane separately so each has its own receipt, or write the split on the receipt.
• Odometer. Write the odometer reading on each road-fuel receipt.
• Tags. Mark each fuel receipt "drive" or "kitchen" before it goes in the envelope.

IRS Publication 583 says specific recordkeeping rules apply to travel, transportation and gift expenses and refers to Publication 463 for them; check that publication before relying on fuel receipts alone for the truck's driving costs.

A generator fed from the truck's own tank cannot be split at the pump. Whether any fuel tax credit or refund is available for generator fuel is a separate question. Whatever split your books use, keep the gallons on each receipt, odometer readings, idling time and generator running hours.

Supply runs mid-service need only a moment: write on the receipt what it was for and put it in the cash box or envelope at once. IRS Publication 583 says to record expenses when they occur, and that documents for inventory should show the amount paid and that the amount was for inventory. If you paid from the cash box, the receipt is the paid-out. Cash purchases with no receipt are a separate question.

How do you tie the bank deposit back to the day's sales?

The amount banked is not your sales figure: card sales arrive separately, and cash spent from the box never reaches the bank. IRS Publication 583 says you should deposit all daily receipts in your business checking account and note the source of each deposit on the deposit slip; paying for supplies by business card keeps the cash whole for that. When cash did go on supplies or fees first, the paid-out receipts close the gap. Continuing the example, with the 200.00 float kept back:

A deposit covering several days is split back to each day's sheet. Card payouts and organizer payments are matched the same way to sales already recorded, and none is entered as sales twice. Running a petty cash fund is a separate question.

What routine works alone, after service, with no signal?

IRS Publication 583 says it is generally best to record transactions on a daily basis. As soon as service ends, work through these steps in order:

1. Count the cash before anything is removed, and write the count, float and paid-outs on the sheet.
2. Add up the tickets by how they were paid, then save the reader's report for the service hours, or for the day after the last service, and copy its figures onto the sheet.
3. Add voids, comps and any sales tax, work out over or short, then sign and time the sheet.
4. Photograph the sheet, the tickets and every receipt, each marked with what it was for.
5. Put the paper in an envelope marked with the date and place. At the end of the day take it off the truck and file it somewhere safe, by month and type; Publication 583 says to keep supporting documents in an orderly fashion and in a safe place.
6. Once you have signal, check that the photos reached your backup.

When the routine breaks, fall back as follows:

Working alone, nobody else counts, so your independent check is records you did not write: the reader's report, the organizer's statement and the bank statement. Matching payouts and settlements, coding costs and reconciling the bank can wait for one weekly session; the count, the sheet and the envelope cannot.

The end-of-service package differs by trading mode:

Are phone photos enough, and what if you lose the phone?

IRS Publication 583 treats any system that keeps records by electronic imaging as an electronic storage system and says all requirements that apply to paper books and records also apply to it. Publication 583 says such a system must index, store, preserve, retrieve and reproduce the records in legible format, provide a complete and accurate record of your data that is accessible to the IRS, and meet the same controls and retention guidelines as paper, and that when you replace paper records you must maintain the system for as long as it is material to the administration of tax law. For details, Publication 583 refers to Revenue Procedure 97-22, which covers systems that image paper documents and says that using a third party to provide the system does not relieve you of the procedure's responsibilities.

Publication 583 says the original paper may be destroyed provided that the system has been tested to establish that it reproduces the paper in compliance with IRS requirements and procedures are established to ensure continued compliance, and that you still must retain any other records required. Publication 583 says a system that meets the requirements is in compliance, and if it does not, you may be subject to penalties unless you keep the original paper in a manner that allows you and the IRS to determine your correct tax.

So keep the envelopes: the photos are a working copy that keeps the figures readable if an envelope is lost, but they do not replace the paper unless the system meets the requirements above. Before ever relying on images alone, check the whole setup, including the backup service's terms, against Revenue Procedure 97-22. How long to keep records is a separate question.

These steps keep the photos from going with the phone:

• Automatic backup. Back photos up to an account you can open from any device, and check each day's images arrive.
• Naming. Tag each image by date, place and type: sales, fuel, commissary, event or supplies.
• Monthly check. Open a sample from another device, confirm every figure reads, and export a copy to a second place you control.
• Recovery. Make sure you can sign in to your email, bank, card-reader and backup accounts from another device without this phone.

If the phone is lost or stolen, first use another device to change the passwords for your email, bank, card-reader and backup accounts and, where a service allows it, sign the lost phone out. Then sign in to the backup on the replacement and find the last day that uploaded; every sheet and receipt after it is still on paper in the envelopes you filed.

How should you categorize commissary, venue, fuel and food costs?

IRS Publication 583 describes expenses as costs other than the cost of inventory, so food you cook and sell sits apart from running costs. Use the same categories every period: