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CSV: hospitality accounts with Quebec-correct QBO codes and the stock, licence and consumption notes.
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Running restaurant books in Quebec means answering to the most instrumented sales regime in Canadian hospitality while enjoying purchase economics the PST provinces would envy. The mandatory billing system documents every sale; both taxes on nearly every input come back. This QuickBooks Online chart of accounts is built for that pairing, with the exceptions pinned where they occur.
Sales that reconcile themselves, if you let them
Food and beverage sales codes GST/QST QC, prepared food carrying both taxes. The WEB-SRM regime produces authoritative sales records, so the bookkeeping pattern is one POS summary per day, tips split to their liability, and a monthly three-way tie: summaries, mandatory-billing records, and the combined tax liability. Files that post sales ad hoc spend their year explaining differences that discipline would have prevented.
Stock: Z in, pair out
Food stock and ingredients codes Z, basic groceries being zero-rated under GST and QST together, with GST/QST QC flagged for the taxable inputs in every distributor order. Alcohol stock codes the pair with full recovery, resale inventory never touching the 50% rule, while the RACJ permit sits in liquor and business licences at Out of scope. Kitchen and bar equipment claims both taxes and lines up for capital cost allowance.
No provincial layer lodges anywhere in a registered operation, which makes Quebec kitchens cheaper to equip than BC ones at the same sticker prices.
Consumption, the stereo haircut
What the business eats rather than sells, staff dinners, comps, supplier tastings, lands in meals and entertainment or staff events, where recovery halves under both taxes at once. The account notes carry the rule so the returns stop overclaiming; it is Quebec hospitality’s most common filing error and its easiest fix.
The rest of the file
Cleaning and laundry, smallwares and consumables: the pair, full recovery. Insurance: E, with Quebec’s premium tax riding as cost. Payroll: Out of scope, with Quebec source deductions tracked beside federal in the dedicated liability account. Both registration numbers print on anything customer-facing.
The POS mapping is half the bookkeeping
A Quebec restaurant’s chart succeeds or fails at the POS mapping screen. Food categories map to food and beverage sales at the pair; bar categories the same, kept distinguishable for margin; no-show and reservation fees are taxable supplies of their own that deserve a mapped line rather than a manual monthly surprise; tips route to the liability; gift-card sales route to theirs. An hour spent making the POS speak this chart’s language means every daily summary posts itself correctly, and the monthly tie to the mandatory-billing records becomes confirmation rather than investigation.
Weekly loop
- Enable sales tax (the Quebec codes provision natively), then import the chart under Settings, Import data, Chart of accounts.
- Post the daily summary; reconcile monthly to the mandatory-billing records.
- Enter distributor invoices line by line, Z beside the pair on one slip being normal.
- Sweep the consumption accounts before each combined filing.
- Count stock monthly; waste and staff meals hide in food cost otherwise.
- Keep gift cards parked as liabilities until redemption finally taxes them at the meal they buy.
Hospitality paper is relentless, and Quebec runs it through two taxes and a billing regime. Dext anchors the recurring distributors. ExpenseFlow reads each invoice, splits Z from the pair per line, keeps permits out of scope and consumption at half, and posts coded entries into QuickBooks that tie to the single Revenu Quebec return. Hubdoc files the originals against the trail.
On Xero instead? That build, with Quebec’s custom rates, is at Quebec hospitality chart of accounts for Xero. The code list is the Quebec QuickBooks sales tax reference.