The template has 28 number fields in seven groups: one revenue group and six expense groups (cost of goods sold, labor, occupancy, utilities, franchise fees, and marketing and other operating costs). As you type, it adds each group into a subtotal. It then divides each expense subtotal by your total monthly sales and shows the result as a whole-number percentage beside the subtotal, and it shows two totals: total monthly operating expenses, and planned sales minus expenses. If sales are zero, the percentages stay blank. If expenses exceed sales, the second total shows a negative number.
These limits matter when you read the output.
- The benchmark text beside a section is a label. The page never compares your number to it or colors a result, so you do the comparing.
- The percentages are rounded to whole numbers and are shown per group, not per line, so the rounded figures may not add to the exact total.
- "Planned sales minus expenses" is not profit. It leaves out owner pay (unless you entered it under manager or salaried pay), loan payments, income tax, depreciation, and equipment purchases.
- It covers one month at a time. Seasonality, a slow opening quarter, and annual bills such as insurance are only captured if you spread them across months yourself.
- Every percentage uses total sales as the denominator, including catering and wholesale. The card-processing benchmark is a share of the transaction, so it will read a little differently from the tool's share of total sales when some sales are cash or wholesale invoices.
- There are no default numbers, and the arithmetic runs in your browser as you type.
Worked example (illustrative numbers)
These figures are invented to show the arithmetic for a hypothetical independent shop. They are not a brand's results and not a forecast. Suppose one month's planned sales are $38,000 in store, $4,000 catering and wholesale, and $3,000 other, for $45,000.
- COGS: coffee 5,200, milk 3,400, food and pastry 4,300, packaging 1,500 = $14,400, or 32.0 percent of sales.
- Labor: hourly wages 9,600, manager pay 3,200, payroll taxes 979 (7.65 percent of the 12,800 in wages), benefits and workers' comp 800 = $14,579, or 32.4 percent.
- Occupancy: base rent 2,600, CAM and triple-net charges 600, building insurance 150 = $3,350, or 7.4 percent.
- Utilities: electricity 700, water 180, gas 90, internet and POS 160 = $1,130, or 2.5 percent (the page shows 3 percent after rounding).
- Franchise fees: none, because the shop is independent.
- Marketing and other: marketing 900, card fees 1,150 (about 2.8 percent of an assumed $41,000 in card sales), repairs 500, supplies 450, software 350, professional fees 400, miscellaneous 300 = $4,050, or 9.0 percent.
Total operating expenses are 14,400 + 14,579 + 3,350 + 1,130 + 0 + 4,050 = $37,509(83.4 percent of sales), so planned sales minus expenses is 45,000 − 37,509 =$7,491. That amount still has to cover the owner's pay if it is not already in the manager line, any loan payment, and income tax.
Now stress it. If sales fall 20 percent to $36,000 and only COGS and card fees scale down with sales, COGS drops by 2,880 and card fees by 230. Expenses become 37,509 − 2,880 − 230 = $34,399, and the result is 36,000 − 34,399 = $1,601. A 20 percent sales decline cut the result by about 79 percent, because rent, base wages, and utilities did not move. That fixed-cost gap is what a monthly budget is for, and it is why occupancy and labor deserve more attention than the line items that shrink on their own. Run the same test on your own lease and schedule before you commit to either.
What the benchmarks say, and where they stop
The National Restaurant Association's 2024 medians are the only survey-based benchmarks on this template. For limited-service restaurants they were32.4 percent of sales for food and non-alcohol beverage cost,31.7 percent for salaries and wages including benefits(the association's 2010, 2013, and 2016 reports averaged about 28 percent), and5.2 percent for occupancy, rising to 6.0 percent in urban locations and falling to 3.2 percent in small communities. They describe restaurants generally, not coffee shops, so a drive-thru stand with little seating and a cafe with a big dining room should not both expect the same rent share.
Two coffee-specific points come from a training business rather than a survey. Texas Coffee School says coffee shop prime costs are typically 50 to 55 percent of gross salesand advises a menu with a COGS around 30 percent or less. Prime cost is COGS plus labor. In the worked example that is 14,400 + 14,579 = 28,979, or 64.4 percent of sales, well above that range. That gap does not mean the example is wrong, only that a plan with those inputs needs a lower labor or COGS figure, higher sales, or both, before it matches the guidance. Themenu pricing calculator tests the price side, and the staffing calculator tests the labor side.
We found no free, survey-based public median for utilities, marketing, or repairs as a share of sales, so those groups carry no benchmark rather than an unsourced number. For utilities, ENERGY STAR saysrestaurants use about five to seven times more energy per square footthan other commercial buildings, so track your own electric bill month over month. For card fees,NerdWallet (updated March 2026)puts processing at 1.5 to 3.5 percent of the transaction, depending on the processor and pricing model, so your statement's effective rate is what belongs in the budget.
Payroll taxes: a line people underbudget
The labor group includes payroll taxes because they sit on top of wages. IRSPublication 15 (2026)puts the employer's Social Security rate at 6.2 percent, up to a $184,500 wage base, and the employer's Medicare rate at 1.45 percent with no wage base. That is 7.65 percent of wages for most cafe employees, which is the rate used in the example. Federal unemployment tax is separate:IRS Topic 759gives a 6.0 percent rate on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages, reduced by a credit of up to 5.4 percent to 0.6 percent, which is at most $42 per employee per year. State unemployment tax varies by state and by your experience rating, so it is not in the example.
Tips matter in a coffee shop. Publication 15 says tips are generally subject to both the employer and employee share of Social Security and Medicare tax when an employee receives $20 or more in a month, so tips your baristas report add to your employer payroll tax even though they are not wages you set. Have a payroll provider or CPA confirm how your state counts them before you finish the labor group.
Franchise fees: check the base, not just the rate
If you are franchising, the royalty and ad fund come from FDD Item 6, which the FTC'scompliance guidedescribes as covering recurring or occasional fees such as royalties, advertising fees, and transfer fees. The template shows no benchmark for these because each brand sets its own. As one published example, Scooter's Coffee's franchising sitestates a 6 percent royalty and a 2 percent advertising fee, both of net sales (retrieved September 29, 2026). If the example's $45,000 in sales were the net-sales base, those rates would add $2,700 and $900, or $3,600 a month, which would cut the $7,491 result to $3,891 with everything else held constant. The real lesson is the base: a fee on gross sales and a fee on net sales produce different dollar amounts on the same month, so enter the amount Item 6 says you owe, computed on the base it names. Read how royalty fees work andfranchise vs independent for the full trade-off.
How to use it every month
Fill in planned figures before the month starts, then enter actuals when the books close, and look at which group moved. Labor and occupancy are the two to watch first because they are the least flexible in a slow month. For a view of what an owner can take home once these lines are paid, see what the data shows on coffee shop owner income, and for labor as a percentage of sales in more depth,coffee shop labor cost percentage.