The numbers that tell the truth
To know if you're profitable, you need four numbers for any period — a day, a week, a month:
- Sales — total revenue across cash, M-Pesa and card.
- Food cost — the value of ingredients used to produce those sales.
- Labour cost — wages for the staff who worked the period.
- Overheads — rent, power, water, gas, internet, M-Pesa charges, licences.
The simple profit formula
Profit = Sales − Food cost − Labour − Overheads.
Work it for a month and you have your net profit. Divide by sales and multiply by 100 for your net margin percentage. A healthy independent restaurant in Kenya often runs a net margin somewhere in the high single digits to mid-teens — but the exact number matters less than knowing it and watching it move.
Gross profit vs net profit
Gross profit is sales minus food cost — what's left to run the business after ingredients. Net profit is what's left after everything, including labour and overheads. You need both: gross profit tells you whether your menu and pricing work; net profit tells you whether the whole operation works. A great gross margin can still net to zero if labour and rent are too heavy.
Why the once-a-month accountant view isn't enough
If you only see profit when your books are done weeks after month-end, you're always reacting too late. By the time the figures arrive, a bad pricing decision or a supplier hike has already cost you a month. Knowing profitability means seeing it close to live — today's sales against today's costs — so you can adjust this week, not next quarter.
Read profit per dish and per shift, not just the total
A single monthly profit figure tells you whether you survived, but not why. The real control comes from breaking it down: which dishes carry the best margin, which lose money, which shifts were overstaffed for the sales they did. When profit is visible at this level, you stop guessing and start making specific decisions — push the high-margin dishes, fix or drop the losers, right-size the roster.
A quick self-check
Ask yourself: can you answer these right now, without calling anyone?
- What was your net profit last month, in shillings?
- What's your food cost percentage, and is it on target?
- Which three dishes make you the most profit — and which lose money?
- Was last Saturday's dinner shift profitable after staff costs?
- If you can't answer these, you're flying blind — and that's exactly what the right system fixes.
Key takeaways
- Profitability is a number, not a feeling: Sales − Food cost − Labour − Overheads.
- Track both gross profit (after food) and net profit (after everything).
- A monthly accountant view is too slow — you need profit close to live to act in time.
- Break profit down per dish and per shift so you know what to push and what to fix.
How DineHQ shows your real profit
- Live sales, food cost, labour and overheads combine into a profit number you can see any time.
- Gross and net margin update as you trade — no waiting for month-end books.
- Profit per dish and per shift reveals exactly what makes and loses money.
- AI profit insights surface what to push, fix or drop — on any phone, from anywhere.
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