Best Month-End Procedures for Restaurant Franchises

[1234apple]

We are growing from 50 franchises in 8 states to 100 franchises in 13 states in 1 month.

P&L Drafts go out a week after the period end. This gives store managers 4 days for a chance to look over their P&L's and send questions and adjustment requests to the Corporate office.

Corporate then has 2 days to go over each store's questions, answer them in Word format, and make all the necessary adjustments. Once all questions and adjustments are done, we send out P&L Finals along with the answered questions and the period is closed. With 50 stores, we are closing the period 2 weeks into the following period.

How do we consolidate this process adding 50 more stores and still keep the same accounting team? I'm open to any ideas, changing the process entirely or just tweaking it. Either way, with the system we use currently. We will not be able to handle twice as many questions and adjustments.

Any expertise or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[vangogh]

I'm sorry no one responded to your question. I'm not sure I have a great response, but I'll give it a try. Please know this is not my area of expertise. My first thought was what if you just did things a little quicker. Instead of managers having 4 days to look over the P&Ls why not 3 or 2. Is that doable? That should give corporate more time, which is where I assume the bottle neck is.

I realize that's not a big change, but could it work?