The invoicing software for bars and restaurants
Hundreds of till receipts a month, one VAT rate for the food and another for the bottle the customer takes away, and a box of supplier delivery notes that has to be entered before the 20th. Cairos puts that in order without forcing you to change your till.
What is particular about invoicing in hospitality and restaurants
Hospitality is one of the few sectors where the customer generates the paperwork without asking for it: every table is a till receipt, and every week twenty delivery notes come in through the back door.
Almost everything is simplified invoices
Receipts in a bar or a restaurant can be simplified invoices up to €3,000 including VAT, and not the €400 of the general limit. It is in the closed list in article 4.2 of the invoicing regulations, and it is worth knowing before you start issuing full invoices out of habit.
Two VAT rates on the same order
What is consumed on the premises goes at 10%, including the alcoholic drinks that come with the service: article 91.Uno.2.2º of the VAT Act does not exclude any drink where there is a hospitality service. What is sold to take away is a supply of goods and it changes according to what it is: food follows its own rate, and alcoholic drinks and soft drinks with added sugars or sweeteners go to 21%. Mixing them up on the 303 is the sector's most common mistake.
Daily suppliers and loose delivery notes
Drink, meat, fish, bread. Delivery notes arrive every morning and the invoice at the end of the month. If they are not recorded as they come in, by January nobody can reconstruct the year's expenses, and that input VAT is lost.
Staff on split shifts
Weekend extra staff, morning and night shifts and the Labour Inspectorate asking for the working time record. Nobody clocks in in Cairos: your staff clock in at ficheo.app and Cairos reads those hours, shows them person by person and downloads them for you when you are asked for them. It is deliberate, because the working time record has to live in one place and only one. And it costs you nothing as long as your ficheo account is connected.
How it is done today, and how it looks with Cairos
The problem in hospitality is not that you do not know how much you sell. It is that you know it two months late.
Without Cairos
- The till adds up the day and that is that: there is no VAT record book.
- Delivery notes are kept in a shoebox until the supplier's invoice arrives.
- The 303 is done by the accountancy firm with whatever reaches them, and what does not reach them is not deducted.
- Nobody knows what each service really leaves until the year is closed.
- The working time record is kept in a notebook behind the bar.
With Cairos
- The day's sales go in already split by VAT rate.
- The delivery note is photographed as it arrives and stays hooked to the supplier's invoice when that comes.
- The 303 comes out calculated, with the breakdown by VAT rate of the output and the input VAT.
- The reports tell you what margin each month leaves and which supplier has got dearer.
- The hours clocked at ficheo are visible here, and the working time report downloads whenever it is asked for.
What VAT each thing you sell carries
In hospitality what decides is not the product but where it is consumed. Served on the premises, almost everything goes at the reduced rate; to take away, each thing goes back to its own rate.
| What is sold | VAT | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Food and drink consumed on the premises | 10 % | It is a hospitality service (art. 91.Uno.2.2º), and that takes in the wine or the beer that goes with the meal. |
| Set lunch menus, coffees, the terrace and catering | 10 % | Same reason: a service is supplied, not a product sold. |
| Prepared food to take away or delivered | 10 % | It stops being a hospitality service and becomes a supply of food, which goes at 10% (art. 91.Uno.1.1º). |
| Plain bread, milk, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables to take away | 4 % | The closed list in art. 91.Dos.1.1º, which since 2025 also includes olive oils. |
| Alcoholic drinks to take away | 21 % | Art. 91.Uno.1.1º.a expressly excludes them from the 10% where there is no hospitality service. |
| Soft drinks and juices with added sugars or sweeteners, to take away | 21 % | Excluded from the 10% by art. 91.Uno.1.1º.b since 1 January 2021. It is the one most often overlooked in the fridge by the door. |
| Hire of the room for an event | 21 % | It is a lease of business premises, and it goes separately from whatever is consumed. |
Cairos keeps the rate set on each product, so the order comes out right without you thinking about it. All of this comes from articles 90 and 91 of Ley 37/1992. The rates are those of the general regime on the mainland; in the Canary Islands it is IGIC and in Ceuta and Melilla, IPSI.
The modelos you end up filing
| Form | When | Why in your case |
|---|---|---|
| 303 | Quarterly | The VAT from the till less the suppliers', already split by rate. |
| 390 | January | The annual VAT summary, which has to reconcile with the four 303s. |
| 111 | Quarterly | The withholdings on the payroll of your staff and of the extra hands. |
| 115 | Quarterly | If the premises are rented, the withholding on the rent. |
| 347 | February | The suppliers with whom you go over €3,005.06 a year: in hospitality there are several. |
What you will actually use
Four screens, not forty. The rest stays switched off until you need it.
Invoices and till receipts
Simplified ones for the day to day and full ones when the customer asks for the invoice for the company meal.
Expenses with a photo
The delivery note is photographed from your phone and is kept with its supplier and its input VAT.
The quarter's 303
Worked out from the period's sales and purchases, split by VAT rate and compared with the previous year.
The staff's hours
Your staff clock in at ficheo and their hours are read here, by person and by period, ready to download.
Try it with your bar's invoices
Free plan with up to 30 documents a year, no card needed. And if it does not work for you, your data leaves with you.
Questions from hospitality and restaurants
Your bar invoices differently. So does the program.
No minimum term · VeriFactu included · Native support in Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque and English