Stock Control at Pubs and Bars

Open the door to the financial success of your bar

It is extremely important to do regulars stock counts in bars, as it is the type of business where they can be high wastage, unauthorized freebies, and lots of theft.

It is also a business where the cash flow is overwhelmingly positive, meaning that many of the associated bills become due in arrears, thus often masking the true profitability of the business. Many bills are paid in arrears, including some big ones like VAT, other taxes, and staff costs. And often suppliers will give you a set amount of days or weeks between supply and when payment for that delivery is due. That is all well and good, but it can lead many pubs and bars to believe that, because there is money in the account, that they are profitable. And this is not always the case. Indeed far from it.

It is incrediably important to do these regular stock counts and analysis for your pub business to succeed. Don't walk around with your head in the sand thinking everything is ok. The reality is, you can often be losing thousands just by not have stock control.

Our software here at Simple Stock Control is tailored specifically towards pubs and bars, and particularly those which are independent businesses or small chains. The software enables the following:

Easy stock counts
Calculation of Gross Profit and GP%
Calculation of all item GPs
Calculation of Expected GP (for comparison to actual)
Calculation of the Net Profitabilty of your pub/bar

In the pub business, it is very dangerous to assume everything is ok. It is one of the industries where waste can get very high if not monitored (or shown to you financially), and where there is sadly a high percentage of employees who will steal from you, either indirectly by giving stock away or directly by taking it for themselves, or by under-ringing sales and keeping the money for themselves. It is terrible to find this out about someone you trusted, but it is even worse to just assume it isn't happening. It does - all the time.

A lot of independent pub and bar owners/managers are juggling a million tasks, and stock control can get neglected. That is why the Simple Stock Control software is designed to be quick an easy to use. Once you have set up your product range, and specified which group or location the products are, you can simply walk around with your phone and input the count numbers in a logical order. Simple as that.

Products in multiple locations

The software also copes very well with products being in multiple locations. e.g. you can have a group for spirits at the bar, and a group for spirits in the spirits store. e.g.2. You can have a group for bottles in the bar fridges, and a group for bottles in the cellar. You can break it down into smaller groups as you wish. So you could even have groups like "top shelf spirits" or "Bar Fridge 1" etc. You can also quickly save the count at any point, if interrupted, and carry on from the same point when you become free again.

Individual Item GPs - what price changes are needed

The Item GPs display is particular useful in identifying bar products which are set with a too low selling price, or where the cost price is too high and you need to consider a new supplier or changing that product for something else. From this display you can also instantly see which high value products it would be good to do some promotions on, and advertise them a bit more prominently.

If you think you may be interested then jump in and give it a go. The software costs just $8 a month, and you can cancel at any time. Hopefully we can help you make more profit from your bar.