10 hospitality finance red flags

The most common warning signs that your hospitality finances are slipping into dangerous territory.

People rarely switch accountants when things run smoothly. And as the finance team for 40+ businesses with a combined annual turnover of over half a billion pounds, we’ve seen all kinds of finance red flags during onboarding.

Most new clients come to us needing a fix. These include late accounts, stressed teams, missing information, and handovers that reveal more problems than expected.

Here are some common red flags we see in hospitality finance. If any of this sounds familiar, it may be time to get help. You can always fix these issues, but the sooner you act, the better.

‍

1. Debit balances on your creditors ledger

Your creditors ledger is a list of what you owe suppliers. Most of the time, those balances should be credits because you haven’t paid them yet.  

If you start seeing debit balances, you might want to investigate. This often happens when payments are posted without matching invoices. The costs are hidden rather than recognised, making your profits look better than they really are.

A few small debit balances aren’t unusual if they’re recent and someone knows why they’re there and how they’ll be cleared.

Bigger issues show up when individual suppliers are in an overall debit position, or worse, when the whole creditors ledger is in debit. That means you’ve overpaid suppliers and need to get money back, or costs are missing and your profits aren’t accurate.

‍

2. Late accounts

If monthly accounts take more than 8 days to arrive, that’s not ideal. But waiting months is a big problem. Late accounts make it hard to spot issues, control cash, or make good decisions because you’re always working with old information.

‍

3. Large balances in your cash in transit accounts

Your cash in transit (CIT) account should only hold a couple of days of sales. Large balances suggest bank postings aren’t reconciled, or cash isn’t reaching the bank. Either way, transactions aren’t flowing properly, and the accounts can’t be relied on.

Here’s how it should work:

• Sales happen: Credit in sales, debit in CIT.  
• Cash arrives at the bank a few days later: debit in the bank, credit in CIT.
• Reconcile: CIT clears once the entries match.  
  ‍

4. Deposits and gift cards in a debit balance

Deposits and gift cards should usually be credits, because customers pay you before they receive anything.

If they show as a debit balance, it often means the sale has been recorded twice. Once when the voucher or deposit was sold, and again when it was used. This is a common mistake in hospitality and makes sales look higher than they really are.
‍

5. Big suspense account postings that hang around

A suspense account is where you hide put unknown transactions while you’re waiting to find out what they are.

It’s supposed to be a short-term placeholder. If large balances sit there for a long time, it usually means poor processes and increases the risk of mistakes or misuse.
‍

6. Intercompany balances don’t reconcile

If you own two companies, money sent between them should match on both sides. For example, if Company A sends £100 to Company B:

• Company A should show a £100 debit with Company B.
• Company B should show a £100 credit with Company A.

All intercompany balances should equal zero. If they don’t, one company thinks it’s owed money while the other thinks it’s paid.  

Balances that don’t reconcile usually happen in manual systems where journals aren’t automatically posted to both companies. Manual posting takes time and often leads to mistakes, which software like Xledger can avoid by handling intercompany postings automatically.
‍

7. Accruals showing a debit balance

Accruals let you record expenses in the month they happen, even if you haven’t received the invoice yet. Usually, accruals have a credit balance because the expense is already in your P&L, and the accrual holds it until the invoice arrives. When the invoice comes in, it’s matched to the accrual, so your charges appear in the right period.

If you see a debit balance in the accrual, something isn’t right. It might be a prepayment entered by mistake, which isn’t a big issue, or it could mean an expense was recorded without an accrual, which is more serious. Either way, it should be checked.

During onboarding, we review your accruals and point out any issues to help keep your accounts accurate.
‍

8. Prepayments that aren’t unwinding

Prepayments are the opposite of accruals. You pay first, then recognise the cost over time.

Take insurance as an example: one bill that covers the year ahead. You pay upfront, but the expense gets spread across the next 12 months. So, you hold it in a prepayments account and release a portion to the P&L each month.

But if prepayments aren’t unwound properly, costs stay on the balance sheet instead of being released to the P&L. That’s a problem because if the spent money never shows up as an expense on the P&L, profits look better than they really are.
‍

9. Suppliers put you on stop

Being put on stop means suppliers refuse to deliver until they’re paid. If this happens unexpectedly, it’s often a sign that something isn’t working in accounts payable.
‍

10. Running out of money without knowing why

And, this might be obvious, but if you’re dipping into personal funds without understanding why, your cash flow isn’t being tracked properly and needs immediate attention.

‍

Any of these red flags sounding familiar?

We fix even the biggest finance messes, and after the first month-end, we usually have your accounts running smoothly.  

With an NPS score of 61 (125% above industry average), you’re in good hands.

Talk to us about:  

• Outsourced accounting teams.
• Multi-entity accounting software & setup.  
• Fully managed BACS-approved payroll.

‍

LLMs like Chat GPT don't think, they predict. Here's how to stay smart and safe when using them in finance.

‍

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can dramatically accelerate work in finance, but they are not self-aware or intelligent in the human sense. It’s important to understand their strengths and risks before integrating them into business-critical workflows, such as reconciliation, reporting, or approvals.

Below, you’ll find practical guidance on using LLMs safely and effectively within a finance environment.

‍

1. Understand what an LLM is so you know its limitations

LLMs are prediction engines. They generate plausible-sounding text based on patterns in the data they’ve seen, not based on understanding, reasoning, or validation.

They can:

• interpret files and perform calculations (if code interpreter is enabled)
• identify patterns in structured and unstructured data
• communicate fluently and clearly
• assist with logic, drafting, and process design.

They cannot:

• truly validate their outputs unless explicitly told to
• recognise mistakes unless instructed to detect them
• understand domain risk (e.g. financial or legal consequences)
• know when they are wrong—they sound confident regardless.
  ‍

2. Never assume the LLM is "thinking"

Because the interface is conversational, it’s easy to assume the LLM "gets it". In fact, it only understands patterns of language, not context, goals, or consequences.

Example mistake: You expect a reconciliation tool to notice that a total is clearly wrong. The LLM doesn’t—it just outputs the formula result as if it’s correct.

Assume nothing is being "sanity checked" unless you explicitly instruct it to.
‍

3. Use explicit validation steps

When using LLMs in finance:

• Always verify that the total from uploaded files matches the user-provided summary.
• Stop and flag any mismatches before continuing.
• Display all reconciled items (not just a summary). Highlight any unusual values such as zero amounts, unexpected credits, duplicate invoice numbers, and totals that do not reconcile to zero.

Use logic like: "If the explained total does not match the expected difference within 1p, stop and show an error."
‍

4. Reduce hallucinations by providing accurate, specific data

LLMs will confidently fill in gaps if not given clear instructions and data, which is dangerous in financial workflows.

To minimise hallucinations:

• Parse real data from files using the code interpreter to turn it into structured, readable information for different formats.
• Extract data from Excel and calculate it yourself instead of relying on the LLM to understand it.
• Double-check answers instead of trusting them because they sound confident.

All outputs should be based on data, not narrative.
‍

5. Don’t let fluency fool you

The more professional and confident the LLM sounds, the more tempting it is to trust it.

Remember it will:

• still output an answer even when it’s unsure
• rarely say "I don’t know" unless explicitly instructed
• never flag its own hallucinations unless you build in logic to do so.

Treat it like a brilliant junior assistant: powerful, fast, and helpful, but prone to make things up when unsure and always needs a manager to set the rules and check the outputs.
‍

6. Use LLMs to build, not own, your process

LLMs are excellent for:

• prototyping reconciliation logic
• writing prompt chains or processing rules
• drafting communications and automating outputs.

But when you’re ready to scale or automate, consider:

• locking the logic into tools like Excel VBA, Power BI, or an internal app
• using the LLM for exceptions and explanations, but not for making decisions.

This hybrid model gives you both:

• speed and flexibility during design
• safety and repeatability in deployment.

‍

The takeaway rules for effectively using LLMs in finance

✅ Always verify totals before proceeding.

✅ Never let the model continue if values don’t match.

✅ Expose all calculations and lists to the user.

✅ Use LLMs for reasoning, not raw control.

✅ Remember it’s not intelligent—just extremely fluent.

When in doubt: stop, show the data, and ask the human.

‍

Let’s talk  

If you're looking for a hospitality finance partner who really gets multi-site ops and can support you at every stage—from daily numbers to long-term growth—we'd love to chat.

‍

Same great people. Same deep hospitality know-how. Now with even more ways to support you.

We’ve got something exciting to share: Accurise has officially acquired Petticoat Management Team (PMT), our long-time payroll partners.  

Founded in 1999 by Di Stevens, PMT is a BACS-approved bureau that brings 25 years of payroll experience and 150+ clients to the mix, with around 60% of them in hospitality.

Now we’re two teams with one shared focus—helping ambitious hospitality brands with hands-on finance teams, scalable tech, real-time reporting, and seamless payroll solutions.

What this means for you

With Petticoat joining the Accurise family, you get:

• a team that knows your business and the hospitality industry inside and out
• simplified operations, fewer providers, more strategic insights
• continuity and care, with Di and her daughters Jo and Amanda continuing to lead Petticoat.

As Di, founder of PMT, puts it: “We’ve always been a family-run business with a team that really understands hospitality. Joining Accurise means we can work with like-minded people and draw on more knowledge to support the businesses we care about.”

Accurise + Petticoat at a glance

• 120+ top hospitality brands (think Wingstop, SushiDog, Giggling Squid, Turtle Bay, Farmer J, and more).
• 150+ payroll clients.
• 35+ multi-site businesses and counting.
• 38% average YoY revenue growth for Accurise clients.
• 25+ years of payroll expertise from Petticoat.

A partnership 15 years in the making

Our CEO, Rob, has worked with Petticoat for 15 years—first as a client, now as a partner. “I met Petticoat 15 years ago as an operator when they did our team’s payroll,” Rob says.

“Since then, through various roles and a career change to accountancy, I’ve seen everyone out there and they’re still the best. It’s more than the tech. Petticoat takes the time to understand businesses and brings that human insight you just can’t automate. They genuinely care about getting it right, just like Accurise. Teaming up with them was an easy call.”

Powered by VIEW Group  

This acquisition builds on our own momentum. In 2023, Accurise became part of VIEW Group—a Nordic leader in cloud-based accounting and IT services supporting clients across 40+ locations.

With VIEW behind us, we have access to more tools, deeper expertise, and the financial strength to keep growing, while staying true to our service-led approach.

Let’s talk  

We know that running a hospitality business isn’t easy.

• Building in-house finance teams is tough (and expensive).
• Implementing best-practice systems takes time you don’t have.
• Growth can stall when you’re stuck in the day-to-day.

That’s where we come in.

Embedded finance teams. Scalable software. And now payroll. All in one place.

If you're looking for a partner who really gets multi-site ops and can support you at every stage—from daily numbers to long-term growth—we'd love to chat.

‍