Bank Statement to QuickBooks for Breweries and Taprooms: Convert PDF Statements to QBO

A brewery runs two very different sales engines through the same account, and the statement mixes them together. The first is taproom retail: your point of sale (Square, Toast, Arryved, or Clover) settles a nightly batch that deposits net of processing fees, with sales tax and tips already baked in. The second is wholesale, which runs through the three tier system. You invoice a distributor, they sell to retailers, and weeks later they remit payment net of any agreed deductions. That distributor deposit clears an open invoice in accounts receivable. It is not new income.

Getting this wrong distorts the books in opposite directions. If you book the net taproom batch as revenue, you understate gross sales and bury the merchant fees you paid. If you book a distributor remittance as fresh income, you double count the sale you already recorded when you shipped the beer and cut the invoice. Deposits look similar on a statement; they mean different things. Our PDF to QBO converter gets every line into QuickBooks so you can categorize each one correctly instead of guessing from a bank feed.

A single taproom POS batch is not one number. It bundles together the beer and food you actually sold, the sales tax you collected on behalf of the state, the tips your guests left for staff, and the merchant fee your processor kept. Only the first piece is revenue. Sales tax collected is a liability you owe the state until you file. Tips collected are a liability you owe your team.

So a batch that hits the bank as one net deposit should be split: gross sales to income, sales tax collected to a sales tax payable account, tips to a tips payable liability, and the processor's cut to merchant fee expense. Reconstructing that split is easier when the full deposit is already imported. For the mechanics, see our guides on how to record tips in QuickBooks and recording credit card processing fees.

Beer carries federal excise tax collected by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. For a brewer producing not more than 2,000,000 barrels in a calendar year, a reduced rate of $3.50 per barrel applies to the first 60,000 barrels removed for consumption or sale that were brewed at a qualified US brewery. A rate of $16 per barrel applies to the first 6,000,000 barrels for other domestic brewers, and $18 per barrel applies otherwise. These reduced rates were made permanent by the Craft Beverage Modernization Act provisions in the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020.

The accounting point matters as much as the rate. Excise tax is a cost of the beer you removed from the brewery. The tax accrues when the beer is removed, so the liability exists before any money moves. When the TTB payment leaves your bank, it settles an excise tax payable that already accrued. It is not an expense created on the day the ACH clears. State excise tax is separate and varies widely by state. Treat rates, filing frequency, and any bond or return requirements as things to confirm with current TTB and state guidance, because they change.

When you charge a customer or distributor for a keg shell, that money is a deposit you expect to refund when the keg comes back. It never touches revenue. Record keg deposits collected to a keg deposits payable liability account, and reduce that liability when you refund a returned keg. The cash flows in and out; income is untouched.

Kegs that never return are a different story. Once a shell is clearly gone, the unreturned deposit and the lost asset become an expense or a write off. Tracking the payable balance over time tells you how much of your keg float is still floating and how much has walked off for good.

Unlike a bar that only resells, a brewery has real manufacturing cost of goods sold: malt, hops, yeast, cans and crowlers, labels, CO2, and the labor and utilities that turn ingredients into finished beer. Those inputs sit in inventory until the beer is packaged, then the cost follows the product.

The taproom adds a wrinkle worth spelling out. When you pour your own beer for a guest, that pour should be relieved from finished goods inventory at cost, not at menu price. The menu price flows through sales; the cost of the beer poured reduces inventory and lands in COGS. Skip that step and your inventory stays overstated while your margins look better than they are.

Taproom food, guest taps from other breweries, and merch (glassware, shirts, hats) each carry different margins and sometimes different sales tax treatment than your own beer. Lumping them into one income account hides which parts of the room actually make money. Give each its own income line, and map the matching costs so gross margin by category is visible. Some jurisdictions tax prepared food differently from packaged beer, so confirm the treatment with your state.

Tanks, a brewhouse, and a canning line are expensive, and most breweries finance them with SBA loans or equipment leases. When the monthly ACH to the lender hits your statement, it is not a single expense. Split it: the principal portion reduces the loan liability on your balance sheet, and only the interest portion is an expense. Booking the whole payment to one expense account overstates your costs and understates the debt you still owe. The same logic applies to an equipment lease structured as a financing arrangement.

Real brewery statements have rough edges. Distributor chargebacks reverse part of a remittance and should reduce the related revenue, not get booked as a new expense. Keg collars and label printing are small but real supply costs. Festival and event revenue often arrives as cash plus a card reader deposit, and the two halves need to reconcile back to the same event. Taproom cash drops move money from the till to the bank and are transfers, not income. Using Classes or Locations in QuickBooks to tag taproom versus wholesale activity lets you see the profitability of each channel separately instead of one blended number.

How do I record brewery excise tax in QuickBooks?

Accrue the federal excise tax as a liability when beer is removed from the brewery, using an excise tax payable account. When the TTB payment clears your bank, apply it against that payable rather than to an expense. State excise tax gets its own payable. Confirm current rates and filing frequency with TTB and your state.

Are keg deposits income?

No. A keg deposit is refundable money you expect to return when the keg comes back, so it is a liability, not income. Record deposits collected to a keg deposits payable account and reduce that account on refund. Only kegs that never return get written off as an expense or loss.

How do I record taproom sales in QuickBooks?

Break the net POS deposit into its parts instead of booking it as one figure. Post gross sales to income, sales tax collected to sales tax payable, tips to tips payable, and the processor cut to merchant fee expense. Importing the full statement first makes the split easy to reconcile against your POS reports.

Does Arryved integrate with QuickBooks?