Accounting Software for UK Pubs and Bars: Delivery Platforms

If your pub or bar has started selling food through Deliveroo, Uber Eats, or Just Eat, your accounting has just become significantly more complicated. Delivery platform income is not like bar sales — it arrives as net lump-sum payouts after commissions, VAT on those commissions, refund clawbacks, and service fees have all been deducted. Your accounting software needs to handle these deductions properly, and most standard pub accounting setups were never designed for this.

This guide covers what pubs and bars specifically need from their accounting software when delivery platform revenue enters the picture.

Why pub and bar accounting gets complicated with delivery platforms

Traditional pub accounting is already more complex than most small businesses. You have wet sales (drinks sold for consumption on your premises are standard-rated), food sales (hot food standard-rated, cold takeaway food often zero-rated), and potentially accommodation or events. Add delivery platforms, and you layer on:

• Commission deductions at 15–35% of each delivery order — this is a cost of sale, not a general expense, and needs its own nominal code
• VAT on those commissions — the platform charges you 20% VAT on the commission. If you are VAT-registered, this is reclaimable input tax in full, even when part of your menu is zero-rated (see below)
• Refund clawbacks — customer refunds deducted from your next payout without your approval
• Net lump-sum payments — one bank deposit per platform per week, bundling dozens or hundreds of individual orders

Your bar POS handles till sales. Your card processor reconciles easily. But delivery platform payouts sit outside both systems — you need to reconcile them separately using platform CSV exports and manual journal entries.

The mixed-rate VAT challenge for pubs

Pubs and bars selling through delivery platforms face a particularly awkward VAT situation. Your delivery menu likely includes:

• Standard-rated items (20% VAT): Hot food (burgers, pies, chips), hot drinks served for takeaway, bottled water and most cold soft drinks
• Zero-rated items (0% VAT), when sold as cold takeaway: Cold sandwiches, cold wraps, certain cold desserts

Cold items in a delivered meal are not automatically zero-rated, though: HMRC's catering guidance (VAT Notice 709/1, section 2.1) lists "delivery of cooked ready-to-eat food or meals (with or without crockery or cutlery)" among its obvious examples of catering, and catering is standard-rated whether the food is hot or cold. Agree with your accountant how your delivered cold items are treated.

The commission your delivery platform charges is also standard-rated for VAT at 20%. If you are VAT-registered, you can reclaim that commission VAT as input tax in full — a mixed hot/cold menu does not restrict it.

Example: If 75% of your delivery sales are standard-rated hot food and 25% are zero-rated items, you still reclaim 100% of the commission VAT. Zero-rated supplies are taxable supplies taxed at 0%, not exempt supplies, and VAT Notice 700 allows recovery of input tax relating to "supplies you make which are liable at the standard rate, reduced rate or the zero rate." Partial exemption only bites where a business makes genuinely exempt supplies, such as financial services, insurance and certain property. A pub's food and drink sales are taxable, not exempt. Gaming-machine takings that fall within machine games duty are exempt (VAT Act 1994, Schedule 9, Group 4), so a pub with a fruit or gaming machine can be partly exempt. The commission VAT on delivery sales relates wholly to taxable supplies, so it is still recoverable in full.

Where the 75/25 split does matter is the output VAT on the sales themselves: standard-rated items at 20%, zero-rated items at 0%. Post those as separate revenue lines rather than one blended figure.

The costly error here runs one way:

• Underclaiming — restricting the commission VAT reclaim to your standard-rated share, or not reclaiming any of it — leaves money on the table, potentially hundreds of pounds per year

For the worked example — and the two mistakes most pub accountants make on mixed-rate menus — see our VAT on delivery commissions guide. Our free VAT on Delivery Commissions Guide tool confirms the treatment for your own hot/cold ratio.

What to look for in accounting software

If your pub or bar is on delivery platforms, evaluate your accounting software against these criteria (for a food-led site, our guide to accounting software for restaurants covers the restaurant version):

1. Separate tracking for delivery revenue

You need to track delivery platform income separately from bar sales, food service, and other revenue streams. At minimum, you need distinct codes for:

• Deliveroo gross sales
• Uber Eats gross sales
• Just Eat gross sales
• Commission expense per platform
• VAT on commissions (input tax)
• Refund deductions per platform
• Service fees per platform

A single "delivery income" line captures none of the detail you need for reconciliation — or for answering HMRC queries.

2. Multi-line journal support

Delivery platform payouts arrive as single bank deposits. To record them accurately, you need to create journal entries that break out the gross sales, commissions, VAT on commissions, refunds, and fees — typically 5-6 lines per journal. Your accounting software must support multi-line manual journals with mixed VAT codes on different lines.

Our guide to reconciling delivery payouts in Xero shows the exact journal format, which applies equally to pubs and bars on delivery platforms.

3. Bank feed matching against multi-line journals

When the delivery platform deposit hits your bank account, your software should let you match that single deposit against the multi-line journal you created. This is standard in most cloud accounting software, but the ease of the workflow varies significantly.

4. HMRC compliance and Making Tax Digital

Since January 2024, delivery platforms report your revenue directly to HMRC under the Digital Platform Reporting Rules. Each platform reports what it paid you, with the fees, commissions and taxes it deducted reported separately. Added back together, those should come close to your gross delivery sales for that platform once refunds and timing are allowed for: HMRC's manual says the figure is calculated on a "cash basis", after refunds made in the period. MTD compatibility for VAT returns is also essential.

5. Handling both wet and food sales alongside delivery

Your accounting software needs to handle the full mix: bar sales through the till, food sales (dine-in and takeaway), and delivery platform income — each with different VAT treatments, payment timing, and reconciliation requirements. The ability to run reports by revenue source is critical for understanding which channels are actually profitable.

The reconciliation gap

No accounting software currently automates the delivery platform reconciliation workflow for pubs and bars. You still need to:

1. Download CSV payout reports from each platform dashboard
2. Cross-reference orders and verify commission rates
3. Split delivery sales by VAT rate, and record the VAT on commissions for reclaim in full
4. Create manual journal entries in your accounting software
5. Match bank deposits against those journals

This is the same challenge that restaurants face, and the gap exists across the entire hospitality sector. Purpose-built reconciliation tools are designed to fill this gap.

What delivery platforms cost your pub (the real numbers)

Use our free commission calculator to estimate what each platform costs you each week after commission, VAT on commission and an assumed 2.5% for other fees (an illustrative allowance, not a published platform charge). The headline commission rate is typically 15–35%, but the effective deduction rate is higher once VAT and other deductions are included.

For a pub doing £3,000/week in delivery orders at 25% commission, the real weekly cost is £900 once the 20% VAT on that commission is included (more if your statement shows refunds or other deductions) — not the £750 the headline rate suggests.

Getting started

1. Audit your current setup — can you report delivery revenue by platform, separately from bar sales? If not, your tracking needs restructuring
2. Set up dedicated tracking codes for each platform's revenue, commissions, and fees
3. Split your delivery sales by VAT rate, and check your commission VAT reclaim using our VAT on Delivery Commissions Guide
4. Start weekly reconciliation — matching platform payout reports against your accounting journals catches errors early
5. Check your HMRC exposure with our free HMRC Readiness Checker — delivery platform reporting rules apply to pubs and bars equally

If you run a cafe rather than a pub, the same mixed-rate VAT challenges apply — see our cafe accounting for delivery platforms guide for the cafe-specific bookkeeping setup.

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This guide covers accounting software considerations for UK pubs and bars on delivery platforms. It is not financial or tax advice. For guidance on your specific accounting setup, consult a qualified accountant.

Sources

• Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023
• HMRC VAT guide (Notice 700) — input tax you can reclaim
• VAT Notice 706: partial exemption
• VAT Act 1994, Schedule 9 (exemptions), Group 4 item 1A: machine games
• HMRC VAT rates
• HMRC — Food products and VAT (Notice 701/14), section 3.7.2: drinks that are standard-rated
• HMRC — IEIM901740: what platforms report as consideration (net of fees, which are reported separately)