Food Truck Bookkeeping: A Practical Guide for Owners

A shop's money at least stays in one building. A food truck's money lives in a cash box behind the fryer, a card reader with patchy signal, three fuel receipts on the dashboard and a pitch fee handed to a market organiser at six in the morning. Trucks lose track of their money faster than shops do — not because owners are careless, but because the whole business moves and the paperwork does not follow. This guide is a phone-first system that moves with you.

Money on wheels: why trucks lose track faster than shops

Three structural reasons. First, there is no back office: records happen wherever you happen to be parked, which too often means they do not happen at all. Second, costs are scattered and heavily cash-based — fuel, pitch fees, gas bottles, event commissions — bought in five different places on the way to work. Third, and most important: the number that decides a truck's future is location performance, and it is completely invisible unless you record where each euro was earned. A shop has one address. You might have ten, and they do not pay equally — sometimes they differ by a factor of three.

Recording sales at events, markets, and regular pitches

The single most valuable habit in food truck bookkeeping: record takings per pitch per day, never just per day. 'Saturday: €640' is bookkeeping. 'Saturday, riverside market: €640 — cash €390, card €250, fee €60' is a business decision waiting to be made. Record what each pitch cost you the same way, because pitch pricing comes in flavours that feel very different in your pocket: a flat €80 day fee, a 10 to 15 percent cut of takings for the organiser, a fixed monthly rate for a regular spot. On a €500 day the flat fee wins; on a €250 day the percentage does — and only the written record, not your gut, can tell you which deal is actually better across a season.

Fuel, pitch fees, and the costs shops don't have

• Fuel — treat the drive to each pitch as part of that pitch's cost, because a market 40 kilometres away has to out-earn the one 5 minutes from home.
• Pitch fees and event commissions — including festival deposits paid weeks in advance; note them when paid, then set them against the event when it happens, or the festival will look more profitable than it was.
• Gas bottles, generator fuel and charging — the costs that vanish because they are bought at petrol stations along with snacks.
• Maintenance and the annual surprises — tyres, brakes, generator service. A €600 repair in October really belongs, spread thin, across every trading day of the year; books that ignore this call a season profitable when it was not.
• Insurance, permits and market licences — often paid once a year and forgotten when judging whether a summer 'went well'.

Cash-heavy days: counting and recording on the move

Markets and festivals still run heavily on cash, so the system has to survive a crowd. Keep it minimal: a fixed float — say €120 in the box every single morning — and a hard rule that you count before you drive off, not when you get home tired. Two numbers to capture at the hatch: cash counted minus float, and the card reader's day total. Send them somewhere permanent the moment the shutters close — the drive home has eaten more records than any thief ever did. For multi-day festivals, use one labelled envelope per day; three days of takings mixed in one pocket makes day-by-day comparison impossible, and day three of a festival is often not worth the fee, which you will only ever prove with separated counts.

Comparing locations: which pitches actually make money

Once a month, give each pitch its own line: total takings, pitch costs, fuel to get there, hours worked including setup and pack-down. The results regularly overturn instinct. Riverside market on Saturdays: €640 average takings, €60 fee, €15 fuel, nine hours door to door — about €63 an hour before ingredients. The big summer festival: €1,900 in takings looks like the weekend of the year, until you subtract the €350 fee, €90 of fuel and prep, and thirty hours across three days — €49 an hour, plus two days of recovery. Your gut remembers the €1,900; only the notebook remembers the thirty hours. This one comparison is the highest-value output of a food truck's books, because it writes next season's calendar for you.

A simple weekly close-out from your phone

• Add up each day's cash and card figures — you already sent them from the pitch, so this is five minutes.
• Add the week's costs: fuel receipts, pitch fees, gas, ingredient shopping.
• Write each pitch's net for the week — takings minus that day's fee and fuel — next to its name.
• Note anything owed or prepaid: festival deposits, supplier invoices not yet settled.
• Finish with one honest line: best pitch, worst pitch, one thing to change next week.