From chaotic books to a thriving café group

The Challenge

When Sarah first came to Account For It, her café had been trading for three years — but her books told a very different story. Receipts were piling up in shoeboxes, bank reconciliations hadn’t been touched in months, and she had no idea whether her business was actually profitable. With a second location on the horizon, her bank was asking for financial statements she simply couldn’t produce.

What We Did

We started with a full bookkeeping clean-up, working back through 36 months of transactions in Xero. Once her accounts were reconciled and accurate, we moved on to restructuring her business — moving from a sole trader arrangement into a company structure with a discretionary family trust, giving her far greater flexibility around how profits were distributed and taxed.

We also set up a simple weekly cash flow tracker and trained Sarah’s floor manager to handle basic Xero data entry, reducing the admin burden on Sarah herself.

The Results

Within six months, Sarah had clean financials, secured funding for her second location, and reduced her annual tax liability by 40%. More importantly, she finally had visibility over her numbers — knowing at any point whether her business was on track.

“Braden and the team turned three years of chaos into a clean set of books in a matter of weeks. I can’t believe I waited so long to get help.”

— Sarah M., Café Owner, Perth

Key Outcomes

• 3 years of backlogged bookkeeping reconciled
• 40% reduction in annual tax liability
• New company and trust structure established
• Finance secured for second location
• Weekly cash flow reporting implemented