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Garde pulls your Point of Sale data every day and translates it into a balanced journal entry that posts directly into your accounting software. Setting up your sales mapping is a great way to automate this process in a controlled environment — and it means more timely, accurate sales recognition in your books. Here’s a quick look at the major types of data you’ll find on most sales journal entries.

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Sales and Discounts

This is the most important part of sales mapping — and it’s required even if you don’t plan to send sales entries to your accounting system.
  • Net Sales approach: Include all discounts in Sales Reporting and set the Category Type to match the sales for each category.
  • Discounts as a separate line: Create a Category Type called “Discounts” and assign discount Category Types to it. This shows discounts as a total on the Garde P&L while keeping COGS calculated on Gross Sales for each type.
  • Discounts as an expense: Exclude discounts from sales reporting so COGS are calculated on Gross Sales.
The key when you’re getting started is consistency. Match sales and discounts to their respective accounts on the COA and group them so only one number posts to each account each day.

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Credit Card Deposit

The centerpiece of the sales journal entry is the expected deposit for money owed. The main one is the credit card batch, which typically hits the bank a business day or two after the day of business. Your POS usually reports credit card tenders by type, so these should all be grouped together so only one number posts to your bank. For some POS providers (Toast, Square, etc.), Garde can pull the merchant processing fees, deduct them from the expected credit card deposit, and record the expense on your P&L. If your expected credit card deposit matches each actual deposit, many operators post it directly to the bank account and match it when the money clears. If fees can’t be calculated — or your merchant service provider batches deposits or adjusts for chargebacks — it’s usually easier to route the expected and actual deposits through a credit card clearing account. That makes end-of-month reconciliation much simpler.

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Cash Deposit & Credit Card Tips

Your POS reports the total cash receipts for each day.
  • Tips paid from cash: If your restaurant pays out credit card tips from the register each day, group credit card tips with cash receipts so the net deposit is calculated. See Sales Mapping for how grouping works.
  • Other cash activity: Paid In/Out, Over/Short, and similar items recorded in the POS can also be grouped here so you can calculate the actual cash deposit for the day. You can post this to a Cash on Hand asset account in accounting. Posting directly to your bank account works too, but only if the amounts going in and out of the bank match exactly.
  • Tips paid through payroll or pay cards: Post the tip entry to a Tip Liability account. When tips are paid out, a Payroll Journal Entry in accounting reduces the liability.

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Sales Tax

Your POS reports the total sales tax collected each day. These are usually recorded to a Sales Tax Liability account. When you pay your sales tax, that liability gets debited to bring it back down.

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Delivery Services and Other Tenders (Tock, Stripe, Tripleseat, ezCater, etc.)

If delivery service or other third-party sales are rung up in the POS and closed to a specific tender, Garde can post the receivable amount to accounting. We recommend using a dedicated current asset account for each service. When you receive payments from these third parties, post them to the same current asset account and reconcile the difference there — the gap will be fees, refunds, and promotions.

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Gift Cards

If gift card activity runs through your POS, Garde picks up the amount sold and redeemed each day. You can group these two lines together and map them to your Gift Card Liability account to adjust the outstanding balance daily. Revenue from gift card sales gets recognized when the cards are redeemed and food or drinks are rung up. Comped gift cards are usually mapped to your discounts account or another expense account like Advertising or Marketing.

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Private Party Deposits and Preorders

If deposit activity runs through the POS, Garde captures the amount of deposits created and applied each day. Group these two lines together and map them to your Deposit Liability account to keep the outstanding balance current. Record the cash from deposits on the day they’re paid, and recognize the revenue on the day of the event. The liability balance goes up when the deposit is paid and back down when it’s applied. Some operators handle this activity outside the POS, but if it goes through the POS, it can be built right into the sales entry.

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Exporting to Accounting

Sales entries are sent manually by default, but you can switch to automatic exporting through your Accounting System Integrations settings. If a sales entry goes out with incorrect mapping, you have two options:
  1. Manually adjust the entry in your accounting system, fix the mapping in Garde, and it’ll be correct going forward.
  2. Delete the entry in your accounting system, fix the mapping in Garde, and resend the updated sales entry.
If a sales entry is showing an error, it’s likely unbalanced. If that happens, send our support team an email at contact@garde.app so one of our sales engineers can make sure all the POS data is included on the entry. (This can come up when you add new sales categories or tenders, or have transactions that don’t occur regularly and weren’t part of the original onboarding setup. Including your POS Daily Sales Report with the help ticket makes it much easier for us to spot what’s missing.)