Profit audits for hospitality businesses
You’re already making the money.
You’re just not keeping it.
A Profit Leak Audit reads three months of your sales, wages and supplier invoices, finds every place margin is leaving the business, prices each one in dollars, and hands you a written plan in the order that pays fastest. One fee. No software to learn. Nothing to log in to.
None of this is bad management. It is arithmetic nobody working a sixty-hour week has time to do.
21 years in hospitality
Cafe owner, almost 10 years
Every finding read by a person
A written, priced report
Confidential, NDA on request
Your data stays in Australia
The problem
Profit does not leave in one lump. It drips.
Almost no hospitality business loses money through one big mistake. It goes through hundreds of small decisions: a supplier price rise here, an extra rostered hour there, a portion that grew by ten grams last winter. Each one is too small to notice. Together they are the difference between a good year and a hard one.
$18
a day
One over-rostered hour
$126
a week
Nobody notices
$540
a month
Buried in the P&L
$6,570
a year
Gone. From one leak.
And leaks never come alone
Roster built for the week you hoped for
$6,570 / yr
Supplier prices creeping up a few cents at a time
$4,700 / yr
Food cost drifting a fraction of a percent a week
$5,100 / yr
Hiding in an ordinary venue, in an ordinary year
$16,370
Illustrative arithmetic, not a claim about your business. Your audit works from your numbers only.
Your P&L tells you the money is gone. It does not tell you where it went, or what to do on Monday.
That is not a failing of your accountant. A P&L is a summary written after the fact. Profit leaks live one level below it, in the invoice lines, the shift patterns and the till detail nobody has time to read.
Why now
Three cost rises just hit hospitality. You cannot stop any of them.
Two have already landed. The third lands on 1 October. You cannot opt out, and you cannot lift prices fast enough to cover them, so the only margin left to win is the margin you are already losing to leaks you cannot see.
Payday super
Super now leaves your account every payday, not once a quarter. Any slack in your wages bill is now a weekly cash problem.
Minimum wage up again
Award wages rose 4.75% and the National Minimum Wage is now $26.44 an hour. Every over-rostered hour costs more than it did in June.
Card surcharge ban
You can no longer pass Visa, Mastercard or eftpos fees to customers. The margin you were quietly recovering at the terminal disappears.
Surcharge ban begins
1 October 2026
00
Days
00
Hours
00
Mins
00
Secs
After this date you absorb every Visa, Mastercard and eftpos fee yourself. A Profit Leak Audit shows you where to find it back.
Sources: Fair Work Ombudsman (payday super, 2026 annual wage review); Reserve Bank of Australia (merchant card surcharging reforms).
What Leak does
An independent audit of where your profit actually goes.
Not a dashboard. Not a subscription. A piece of expert work, delivered as a written document, by someone who has run the floor on a Saturday.
01
Reads the data your P&L never shows you
Your POS export line by line, your wage or roster report shift by shift, every supplier invoice, and your menu. The operational layer underneath the financial one.
02
Finds where profit is leaving
Your numbers are worked against your own trading history and your own targets, not a generic industry rule. A supplier lifting prices on you is only visible against what that supplier used to charge you.
03
Puts a dollar figure on each one
Every finding is priced with the working shown, on stated conservative assumptions. Where the data cannot honestly support a number, it is reported without one rather than made up.
04
Hands you the order to fix them in
A prioritised plan ranked by what pays back fastest, written as instructions you could hand a manager on Monday morning.
The technology behind it
Powered by the Leak Intelligence Engine.
Mel spent a year building the analysis system she could never buy: a documented library of 109 known hospitality profit leaks across 12 areas of the business, each one with its own detection rule, its own dollar formula and its own false-positive test. It is what makes it possible to compare every invoice line against months of history in an afternoon.
You will never see it, and you will never log in to it. It is not the product. It is the reason the product is thorough.
109
documented profit leaks
12
areas of the business
100%
reviewed by a person
Coverage
Twelve areas. 109 documented profit leaks.
Your business is worked against a written library, not a hunch and not a memory. That is what stops an audit becoming a list of whatever the auditor happened to think of that week.
Labour
Roster against trade, day by day. Over-rostering, the weekday and weekend split, overtime built in by roster design, penalty-rate exposure, super and on-costs.
Food and beverage cost
Cost against target and against your own baseline, theoretical versus actual, portioning, prep overproduction, milk and coffee throughput, staff meals.
Suppliers
Every invoice against that supplier's own trailing average. Price creep, invoice arithmetic errors, duplicate invoices, delivery fees and small-order surcharges.
Menu engineering
Gross profit by dish, the slow tail nobody orders, hero items priced too cheaply, and the items carrying the whole menu.
Register integrity
Discounts, refunds, voids and no-sales. The quietest and least comfortable category, reported plainly.
Channels
Delivery platform commissions, the true margin per channel, and what a third-party order is actually worth after fees.
Payments
Merchant fees, terminal rates, and the surcharge margin that disappears on 1 October 2026.
Overheads
Fixed costs that grew without a decision: utilities, waste, subscriptions, equipment rental.
Trading pattern
Dayparts, quiet hours carrying full cost, opening and closing hours that do not pay for themselves.
Customers
Average spend, item attachment, and the trend underneath a flat-looking revenue line.
Compliance
Where an operational finding touches award rates or entitlements, it is flagged for a qualified person, never ruled on.
Data coverage
What your systems cannot currently tell you, and what it is costing you not to know. Named honestly rather than glossed over.
79 of those 109 can be checked from the standard file pack you already have. The rest need extra data, and your audit tells you which ones and what it would take.
The process
How a Profit Leak Audit works.
Six steps. Half an hour of your time. Everything else is Mel's.
A short call, first
15 minutesFifteen minutes. Mel checks that an audit is actually the right thing for your business and tells you honestly if it is not. Nobody pays anything at this stage.
You send four things
Half an hour of your time, onceYour POS sales export, your wage or roster report, your supplier invoices and your menu. Roughly three months of each. They go through a private upload link, or Mel will get on a call and pull them with you.
The analysis runs
Nothing required from youEvery line item, every shift, every invoice, worked against your own targets and your own trading history through the Leak Intelligence Engine.
Mel reads every finding herself
The part that cannot be automatedShe reviews each one against what she knows about running a floor, and strikes out the ones that do not hold up. Struck findings are recorded in your report, so you can see what was rejected and why.
Your audit is written
Delivered within 5 business daysA printed document in plain English: what is leaking, what it is worth, the evidence behind each number, and what to do about it.
You are walked through it
90 minutes90 minutes on video, or in person if you are in Perth. You leave knowing exactly what to fix first and what it is worth. The document is yours to keep and to hand to your accountant.
Or read the full method on The Audit.
The deliverable
What you actually receive.
A 14-page printed document, written for you and yours to keep. Not a login, not a dashboard, not a slide deck. Read a complete real one before you spend a dollar.
14 pages. No email required. Marlow & Co is a fictional venue; the analysis, the method and the figures are real.
- 01
The cover
One number: what your own files show leaving the business over the period, with the weekly average and the annual run rate beside it. Weeks read, opportunities found, profit health score.
- 02
A note from your auditor
Written by Mel, before the numbers. What held up in your business, what she thinks is really going on, and the one thing she would do first. This page is why the report reads like advice rather than output.
- 03
How to read this audit
What a measured finding is, what an advisory finding is, why nothing is counted twice, how many findings she struck out, and plainly what this document is not.
- 04
The period at a glance
Every week of your files as its own row: how completely it could be read, its profit health score, how many findings it carried and what was identified that week.
- 05
Where to start
Every opportunity ranked by what the period actually showed, biggest first, with the single action to take this week called out on its own.
- 06
A page per finding
What was found, in the clearest week. What it cost. The components sitting inside it. Four immediate actions, the operational changes that stop it returning, what to monitor, and what success looks like. Every page cites its source file.
- 07
Advisory findings
The patterns your data points at that cannot honestly carry a dollar figure yet. They never get one. You are told where to look instead of sold a number.
- 08
Assumptions, gaps and what happens next
Every assumption behind every figure, every gap in the data and what it is costing you not to know, and the plan for the next ninety days.
Financial impact
Three findings from one real audit.
Every example below is taken from the complete sample audit you can read on this page. It covers 14 weeks of a venue that was, on the evidence, well run: ten of those weeks were clean and its profit health scored 89 out of 100.
Labour
Quiet days were staffed like busy ones
Rostered hours ran ahead of what the week's trade needed, and Monday was the softest day on the till. Labour ran 34.8% against a 30% target.
Rebuild next week's roster lighter, starting with the quietest shifts.
$1,756
over the period
$125
a week
$6,500
run rate, a year
Suppliers and food cost
Food cost drifted above target, invoice by invoice
Fruit Brothers came in 48.6% above their own recent average, Blackboard Coffee Roasters 29.4% above theirs. Food cost ran 34.2% against a 30% target.
Re-quote the two suppliers lifting hardest, and hold the rest to their own averages.
$1,755
over the period
$125
a week
$6,500
run rate, a year
Register integrity
Discounting gave away $473 in its worst week
Discounts applied at the till across 99 lines in a single week, none of them authorised as a promotion.
Set a discount authority level on the POS and review the report weekly.
$142
over the period
$10
a week
$530
run rate, a year
The whole audit, added up
$3,691 across 14 weeks. About $13,728 a year.
In a venue that was already running well. 12 opportunities found, 4 of them priced from the files, the rest reported without a dollar figure because the data could not honestly carry one.
Against a fee of
$1,500
One payment. Including GST. Nothing invoiced afterwards.
Figures are from the sample audit and describe that venue only. Yearly figures are a run rate: the same behaviour carried across a year if nothing changes. Not a forecast, and not a promise about your business.
Why trust Leak
An audit is only worth the person behind it.
I have been in hospitality since I was 13, and I have owned cafes for almost ten years. I know what a fourteen-hour Saturday feels like. I know what it is like to work that hard, look at the bank account on Monday, and wonder where the money went.
The answer was never one big thing. It was a supplier quietly putting cents on the coffee. A roster built for the week we hoped for, not the week we traded. Waste nobody wrote down. Small leaks, every week, that no P&L ever showed me.
Leak is the audit I needed and could never buy. I run every one myself.
Mel Cox, Founder. Read the full story
Twenty-one years in hospitality
Since she was thirteen. Almost ten of those years owning cafes, not advising them. Mel has written the roster, taken the delivery and argued with the supplier.
Independent of everyone
Leak sells nothing else. No supplier commissions, no software referral fees, no rebates. If a finding says change suppliers, it is because your invoices say so.
Financial analysis, operator's judgement
The engine finds patterns no person could. Mel decides which ones matter, because she has stood where you are standing at 6am on a Saturday.
One set of eyes
Mel is the only person who ever sees your files. No team, no offshore processing, no subcontractors.
Stored in Australia, deleted on request
Sent over an encrypted connection, held in Sydney, never sold, never pooled with another venue, never used to train AI. Permanently deleted whenever you ask.
Confidentiality in writing
An NDA is available before you send a single file. Your report says private and confidential on every page because it is.
Pricing
One audit. One fee. Published.
Nobody in Australian hospitality consulting publishes a price. Here is mine. No packages, no tiers, no subscription, and nothing invoiced mid-engagement.
The Profit Leak Audit
$1,500AUD
Including GST. Paid once, before work starts. You receive a tax invoice with my ABN.
Three months of your sales, wages, invoices and menu, analysed line by line
Worked against a documented library of 109 known hospitality profit leaks
Every finding read, challenged and signed off by Mel personally
A written 14-page audit, priced, evidenced and prioritised
A ninety-day action plan in the order that pays fastest
A 90 minutes walkthrough with Mel, on video or in person in Perth
The document is yours to keep, and to hand to your accountant
The first 3 audits
$750 instead of $1,500, for the first 3 venues. That is an exchange, not a discount.
In return I ask for three things: permission to name you in a case study, two introductions to operators you rate, and an honest hour telling me what was wrong with the report. Same audit, same guarantee, same document.
Best fit: an established venue turning over roughly $700,000 a year or more, with a POS that exports its data. If that is not you yet, say so on the call and I will tell you straight.
The guarantee
The Findings Guarantee.
Your audit will identify more in costed, evidenced opportunities than it cost you, or you pay nothing and you keep the report.
I do not guarantee you will save the money. I can find it. Only you can bank it.
Measured on opportunities identified in your audit, expressed as an annual run rate, each one costed from your own files with the working shown so you can check the arithmetic rather than take my word for it.
If the total comes in under what you paid, tell me within 14 days of your walkthrough and I refund the fee in full, to the card you paid with, within five business days. You keep the document either way. I am not going to hand you findings and then take them back.
I will not pad a report to clear the bar. If a business is already run tightly, the honest answer is that there is not much here, and you get your money back. That has to be a real possibility or the guarantee means nothing.
The full wording, including what an audit is and is not, is on the terms page.
Questions
Asked before, answered plainly.
Is this software I have to log in to?
No. There is nothing to install, no account to create and no subscription. Leak is a service. You send four files once, and you receive a written document and a walkthrough. The analysis system behind it is mine, and you never touch it.
What does it cost, and is there anything after that?
$1,500 including GST, paid once, before I start. The first 3 venues pay $750 in exchange for a named case study, two introductions and honest feedback. Nothing is invoiced mid-engagement, and you will not receive a bill afterwards.
What if you do not find anything?
Then you pay nothing and you keep the report. The Findings Guarantee is that your audit identifies more in costed, evidenced opportunities than it cost you. Tell me within 14 days of your walkthrough and I refund the fee in full. I do not guarantee you will save the money: I can find it, only you can bank it.
What exactly do I need to send you?
Four things you already have: a sales export from your POS (Lightspeed, Square, Toast or similar), a wage or roster report, your supplier invoices, and your current menu. Roughly three months of each. PDFs are fine. If pulling them is a pain, I will get on a call and pull them with you.
How long does it take?
Your audit is delivered within 5 business days of me having the complete set of files, followed by your 90 minutes walkthrough at a time that suits you. If I am going to miss that window you will hear it from me before the deadline, with a new date and a reason.
Do you need Xero, or my accountant involved?
No. Your POS export, a wage report, your invoices and your menu are enough. Accounting software helps but is never required, and I do not need to talk to your accountant unless you want me to. Plenty of owners hand the finished document straight to theirs.
Can this be done remotely?
Yes. The whole engagement is remote and works anywhere in Australia. Files go through a private upload link, and the walkthrough happens over video. If you are in Perth I am happy to do it in person.
Is my business too small for this?
It is built for established venues, and it works best above roughly $700,000 a year in turnover, because below that the leaks are usually smaller than the fee. If you are under that, tell me on the call and I will say so rather than take your money. In the meantime the free tools on this site will get you a long way.
Can I sign an NDA?
Yes. I will sign yours, or send you mine, before you send a single file. Confidentiality is not a favour, it is the baseline.
Who owns my data, and can I have it deleted?
You do, at every stage. It is never sold, never shared, never pooled with another venue and never used to train AI. It is stored in Australia and I am the only person who sees it. Email me and it is permanently deleted: files, working notes, everything. Not archived. Gone.
Is this accounting, tax or legal advice?
No, and it is deliberately not sold as any of them. It is an operational analysis, not an audit in the accounting sense, and it does not replace your accountant or bookkeeper. Where a finding touches award rates, entitlements, super or tax, it is flagged for you to take to someone qualified rather than ruled on.
What makes this different from a bookkeeper or a hospitality consultant?
A bookkeeper records what happened. A consultant usually sells you their opinion, and often a system afterwards. This is an independent, fixed-price, evidence-first review of one question: where is your profit going. I sell nothing else, take no supplier commissions, and every number comes with its working shown.
Most hospitality businesses do not have a sales problem.
They have a visibility problem.
One audit that shows you exactly where the profit you are already earning is going, and what to do about it first.
Book a Profit Leak AuditBook an audit
Start with a fifteen minute call.
Tell Mel about your business. She replies personally within one business day, and she will tell you if an audit is not the right thing for you.
Prefer email? hello@getleak.com.au