4Thought Blog

McDonald’s new rules may affect a lot of Owners, including how you transfer your restaurants.

Restaurant transfers and sales have always been an important and complicated part of McDonald’s ownership – it affects how you’ll be set up for retirement and how the next Owners will be set up for success in the future.

Here’s what Owners should know about McDonald’s new rules affecting Next Gen Owners.

There are several tax policies geared at deducting major equipment purchases – such as Section 179 and Bonus Depreciation – but there’s another IRS rule McDonald’s Owners should know that applies to smaller expenditures for the acquisition or improvement of tangible property.

The IRS Repair Regulations are a way for McDonald’s Owners to deduct the costs of smaller purchases – such as muffin toasters, sweetener dispensers, etc., in the year acquired without impacting any accelerated depreciation limitation. But you need a specific accounting policy in place to take advantage of this benefit.

While repair regulation rules have flown under the radar since 100% bonus depreciation was passed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act at the end of 2017, it may be a useful tax planning tool again soon with bonus depreciation scheduled to begin phasing down each year starting in January 2023 and all the way to 0% by January 2027.

Financial health is critically important to your success as a McDonald’s Owner. To help you measure your financial health, we’re doing a series of articles on the McDonald’s financial standard ratios, what they entail and how to improve them.

If you missed them, check our prior articles Your Next McDonald’s Ratio: Estimated Net Equity Percentage, Understanding and Managing Financial Ratios for McDonald’s Franchisees,An Important Metric for Franchisees: Trailing Twelve-Month Liability Turnover and Cash Flow Coverage Ratio: The Most Popular McDonald’s Ratio.

As mentioned in our previous articles in this series, the Financial Standard has three measures.

We talked in great length in previous articles about the Financial Viability Standard and its three components. The other two standards are: submits timely and accurate financial statements and pays McDonald’s and others on time.

The National Restaurant Association is urging the IRS to release crucial Employee Retention Credits to the pandemic-stricken industry.

Many restaurants that applied for ERC have not received the federal funds. A recent poll found 83 percent of operators who applied for the tax credit over six months ago still have not received any funds.

“The ERC has been a critical recovery tool for hundreds of thousands of restaurants, but far too many are still waiting for their refund from the federal government,” said Sean Kennedy, executive vice president for Public Affairs at the National Restaurant Association.

Financial health is critically important to your success as a McDonald’s Owner. To help you measure your financial health, we’re doing a series of articles on the McDonald’s financial standard ratios, what they entail and how to improve them.

If you missed them, check our prior articles Your Next McDonald’s Ratio: Estimated Net Equity Percentage, Understanding and Managing Financial Ratios for McDonald’s Franchisees, and An Important Metric for Franchisees: Trailing Twelve-Month Liability Turnover.

Cash Flow Coverage Ratio seems to be the most popular McDonald’s financial viability ratio and it may well be the most important. This ratio is an indicator of an organization’s ability to pay its creditors. It indicates whether or not the organization generates enough funds to pay all of its business expenses (including compensating the owner), service the debt, and provide sufficient reserves in down times.

Financial health is critically important to your success as a McDonald’s Owner/Operator. To help you measure your financial health, we’re doing a series of articles on the McDonald’s financial standard ratios, what they entail and how to improve them.

If you missed them, check our prior articles Understanding and Managing Financial Ratios for McDonald’s Franchisees and An Important Metric for Franchisees: Trailing Twelve-Month Liability Turnover.

The next financial viability measure we’ll discuss is the estimated net equity percentage. It represents the estimated percentage you own of your business. It’s the hypothetical amount of money that would be remaining after your business is liquidated before paying income taxes.

McDonald’s minimum net equity percentage to be eligible for growth and rewrite is 25%. The estimated net equity is calculated by reducing the estimated restaurant value by the business's net debt. Dividing the estimated net equity by the estimated restaurant value will provide the estimated net equity percentage.

Financial health is critically important to your success as a McDonald’s Owner/Operator. To help you measure your financial health, we’re doing a series of articles on the McDonald’s financial standard ratios, what they entail and how to improve them.

If you missed it, check our introductory article Understanding and Managing Financial Ratios for McDonald’s Franchisees.

In today’s article, we’re going to address the Trailing Twelve-Month Liability Turnover. This ratio represents the number of days of next month’s sales needed to cover any working capital deficit.  

But before we get into the calculation of the ratio, let’s address the concept of working capital.

Owning and operating a McDonald’s franchise business is complicated, and even more challenging if you’re looking for growth and rewrite.

A key to those opportunities is maintaining your financial ratios. McDonald’s Corp. established these ratios to ensure financial stability. A solid understanding of the ratios that make up financial viability, how they are calculated, and why they are important will enable you to make any necessary adjustments to improve your financial viability and often your bottom line.

This blog was written by our guest author, Dan Murdoch, Vice President of Marketing, Harri

Before COVID-19, restaurants had a significant labor challenge, typically referred to as the “talent crisis” or “war for talent.” Unemployment rates were at a five-year low and minimum wage rates were rising across the country.

To better define the challenge, there were simply too many restaurants, massive job growth, a smaller talent pool given the same level of eligible employees, particularly among teenagers, as in 2007, triple-digit turnover rates, cyclical seasonal hiring, and a struggle to find talent that was capable of representing a brand’s ethos.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has received more than twice the amount of Restaurant Revitalization Fund requests than they have money for, though the National Restaurant Association is advocating for more funding.

As of May 12, there were 266,000 RRF applications seeking a total of $65 billion, more than double than the $28.6 billion fund total.

Applications were accepted starting May 3 and for the first 21 days, the SBA is prioritizing funding applications from businesses owned and controlled by women, veterans, and socially and economically disadvantaged individuals. Applications from that group alone totaled $29 billion.