For independent coffee shops + cafes.
Coffee shop bookkeeping that splits processing + tax out of every settlement.
Square and Toast settlements split into Cash + Sales Tax Payable + Processing Expense so the P&L shows real margin and the state's remittance check is paid from money that was always the state's. Wholesale bean and dairy invoices accrue to AP and reverse when paid.
No card required · $15/mo after trial · 30-day money-back
Morning-rush math
Daily Square or Toast deposits land in your account a business day or two behind. PlainBooks lines them up against the bills going out the same week — beans Tuesday, milk three times, rent the 1st — so you see the squeeze instead of guessing.
Hidden cost tally
Payment processing fees, milk price creep, Yelp and Instagram ad spend, the espresso-grinder lease everyone forgets about. PlainBooks sorts every line so the cost of being open is the real number, not the rounded one.
Slow-week heads-up
January and February are brutal. The week between Christmas and New Year's is dead. PlainBooks shows those weeks coming on the calendar — not after you've already overstaffed Tuesday.
Where the books get messy
You take in $400–$800 a day in card sales. Square or Toast pays out next business day, net of processing. The wholesale milk delivery hits Tuesday. The bean order hits Wednesday on Net-15. Rent auto-debits the 1st. Payroll runs every other Friday. Sales tax accrues all month and gets remitted on the 20th.
You feel the squeeze in your bones. The books need to show what's actually happening — not the POS dashboard's rolled-up gross, not the bank's after-the-fact summary.
What PlainBooks does
PlainBooks gives you the books — chart of accounts shaped for an independent coffee shop, the journal where each Square / Toast settlement, dairy delivery, bean order, payroll run, and equipment lease writes a balanced entry, and a period close that locks each month.
Sales tax splits out of every settlement into Sales Tax Payable so the remittance check is paid from money that was always the state's. Processing fees get their own expense line — the 2.6% + $0.15 per transaction adds up to a real number that should show on the P&L, not be hidden inside net deposits.
Wholesale invoices accrue to AP when you log them and reverse when you pay them. The dairy creep, the equipment lease, the POS subscription, the Yelp ad spend — all categorized, all visible.
When the month closes
Close the period and PlainBooks generates the closing entries. The monthly PDF package — Trial Balance, P&L (revenue → COGS → gross profit → labor → other operating → net income), Balance Sheet (with sales-tax liability and equipment-lease liability broken out), GL detail, AP aging — comes out in one file.
PlainBooks does not run your POS, schedule baristas, or cost menu items. Square, Toast, Homebase, Gusto handle those. If a refund lands a week late or you correct a misposted JE, reopen the period with an audit-preserving reversal, re-close.
Bills you can't afford to forget
PlainBooks puts each one on the same calendar as your real bank balance, so you see the collision before it happens.
- RentMonthly, the 1st$1,500–$4,000
- Coffee beans (wholesale)Weekly or biweekly$800–$1,500/mo
- Milk + dairy2–3 deliveries/week$400–$800/mo
- PayrollBiweekly$2,000–$5,000
- Card processing feesDaily, deducted at settlement$130–$250/mo
- POS subscriptionMonthly$0 (Square free) – $69 (Toast Core)
The processing-fee leak nobody runs the math on
Square charges 2.6% + $0.15 per transaction. Toast charges 2.49% + $0.15. On $15,000 of card revenue a month that is roughly $400 going to processing — sometimes more if your ticket size is small. PlainBooks tallies it from the actual settlement lines, not the dashboard's polite summary.
What PlainBooks doesn't do
Honest about scope. If you need any of these, you need different software.
- Run your POS or take orders — Square and Toast already do that
- Schedule baristas or run payroll — that's Homebase, Gusto, Square Payroll
- Cost your menu items or track recipe yield — that's an inventory job
- Pull supplier invoices automatically — you upload PDF/CSV statements or connect the bank
Ready to see your cash position?
$15/month or $150/year (two months free). 14-day free trial. No card required.
Start your free trialCommon questions
- Does PlainBooks work for coffee shop / cafe?
- Yes. PlainBooks is general-ledger bookkeeping software — workspaces, chart of accounts, journal entries, period close, bank reconciliation, the full report set (Trial Balance, P&L, Balance Sheet, GL detail, AR aging, AP aging, 1099 summary). The coffee shop / cafe-specific copy on this page describes the accounts and bills that matter most in this vertical.
- What does it cost?
- $15/month or $150/year when signups open. One price, all features, no tiers. Signups aren't open yet — leave your email on the home page and we'll send one note when launch happens.
- Do I need to connect a bank account?
- No. PlainBooks does not ingest bank feeds. You post journal entries directly (and for trucking workspaces, trips and state-mileage entries write the underlying entries automatically). If you want bank-fed cash visibility, that's a different category of tool.
- What about cash-flow forecasting?
- On the roadmap, not in the current build. PlainBooks today shows what your books say — current balances, what's open in AR and AP, what's posted, what's pending close. We don't promise features that aren't built.