When you commit to managing your bar’s inventory with a system like TavernTrak, one of the first questions you’re going to ask is “how often do I need to do a physical inventory – a stock take – of my bar?”  It’s a good question, and you can answer that question by asking  yourself this: “What is my goal is with regard to liquor inventory management?” Because in a nutshell, the difference between weekly and daily stock takes is the difference between just knowing you have a problem and having the information you need to actually do something about it.

If you perform (or hire a bar inventory service to perform) a weekly stock take – you’re not going to be able to hone in on which of your bartenders are sloppily-pouring, over-pouring, giving away drinks, or drinking your liquor behind the bar.  You’re not going to be able to determine if your barbacks or managers are logging each liquor distribution from your stock room to your service bars correctly.  There’s going to be no real accounting for inventory that’s received from your vendors.  All you’re going to get is a raw variance number – which will probably be bad! – with none of the information that you need to actually correct the problem.

So essentially, you will have just paid a lot of money to feel kinda bad about a sucky situation that you’re given absolutely no way to feel any better about!

On the other hand, when you do a daily stock take on the stations that were open the day/night before, you are able to pinpoint the liquor that was poured/served (“usage”) at that station down to one or two bartenders.  When that usage is compared against the sales at that station, you have concrete, tangible evidence of how well the bartender(s) performed his or her job.  If bottles of liquor “magically appeared” at the station, then that means they weren’t logged into TavernTrak when they were distributed from the stock room to your service bar – which means there was a breakdown on that part of your bar’s policy and procedures.  If bottles turn up missing from your stock room and aren’t out at your service bars, then you know the staff to ask questions of regarding where they went: the one’s that worked the previous day.

TavernTrak is just one component of the incredibly valuable investment that you make in your bar when you decide to manage your liquor, beer, wine, and whatever-else-you-want-to-manage inventory.  The other part is actually using the system, which is easy with TavernTrak, because every aspect of the system and every task you perform with the system is designed to progress at the fastest possible speed (while at the same time, not sacrificing accuracy).  We care about the process.  We respect that your time is valuable and short.  And we are intently focused on your experience with TavernTrak. We’ve worked with our customers – people just like you – to make the stock take process proceed as efficiently as possible.  Where a couple of seconds could be shaved off in some way from a task in TavernTrak, they was shaved off.  Because by adding up the “couple of seconds”, we’re able to provide an absolutely accurate stock take in the absolutely minimum amount of time: Six Seconds per product – Around 12 Minutes per Station.

So long story short, before you can really make the choice between daily and weekly stock takes at your bar, you’ve first got to get your bar’s staff to follow the established policies and procedures for moving bottles of liquor around the bar, for receiving inventory from your vendors, and for your bartenders to accurately pour what they sell, and sell what they pour.  And the best – the only way – to establish control over your inventory processes is through daily stock takes.

Only after you’ve got control – after your bartenders are pouring accurately – after your staff is doing what it’s supposed to do – after you’ve got concrete evidence that the liquor you’re receiving from your vendors is actually ending up on your stock room’s shelves – after everything is checking out with daily stock takes – then you can think about stretching out the time between stock takes at your bar to span multiple days up to a weekly stock take.

TavernTrak can help you get control.  TavernTrak can help you maintain control.