One of the key ways to reduce stock shrinkage and maintain a healthy gross margin is by regularly conducting a thorough stocktake on your premises.

Given the nature of how a bar operates it is critical to manage your onsite stock. Often a bar owner or manager can tell that the stock levels are not correct and are shrinking. But if you want to get to the bottom of the causes of that issue in your premises it advisable to look to bring on a professional stocktaker who will be skilled at determining the extent of your stock shortfalls. They will be able to explain to you what effect that it is having on your gross profit margins. And most importantly they will be able to uncover the exact causes for any stock loss you may be experiencing.

It is not uncommon for a bar owner or manager to be conducting regular stocktakes but have no idea as to how the stock shrinkage is occurring. A common cause of this shrinkage is an issue with your point of sales (POS) system or more specifically the reports or lack there of you are getting from them.

Some of the common issues around this are that a bar will generate reports for just department sales as one lump sum. To really feel the benefit of any stock take you must invest in a good fully stock reporting till. This means having a POS system that has preset buttons and PLUs.

The advantages of this type of system are many but a couple of the more beneficial advantages are that your staff will never get a drinks price wrong. They will also be able to ring rounds in as they go reducing the chance of missing a drink off of a round. You don’t have to teach new members of staff all your drinks prices. You can check that a full round has been rung in every time.

The real advantage comes when you wish to ascertain where your stock is disappearing, you will be able to check each product line against the stock takers report and see exactly which lines are under achieving. A good POS system makes having a stock take worth while a bad one makes it virtually a waste of time and money.

When you work with one of Synergy Stocktaking highly experienced and professional stock takers we can help you get the very best systems and process in place in your venue to ensure you keep the cash on your business through smart processes and timely and intuitive reporting and consulting.

For the purpose of a liquor stock take all bar snacks such as crisps, nuts etc are counted as wet stock and should be included in your liquor stock count as should tobacco products and other items.

Allowances are the downfall of almost every stocktake and the owner, manager, staff consumption is the main allowance. Some venues offer this as a perk of the job, but the big challenge with this is that allowances are hardly every reported on accurately.

Then there’s always going to be the temptation on receiving a bad stock report to say that your estimate was too low and to increase it, mainly to make the stock report look better.

So it is simply best to eliminate this practice from your venue altogether and find another way to incentive bar staff.

It is much better to know exactly what you and your team drink during the stock period and to keep an accurate record of it, paying for own drinks is often the best way of achieving this.

Keeping an accurate record of what you drink or give away has another benefit it will help stop staff from helping themselves to your favorite tipple.

We hope the above tips have been helpful to you. If you would like to avail of a free stocktaking consultation from one of our friendly and professional stocktakes.

Then get in touch today and we’ll arrange a great time for one of our team to drop into your premises and we’ll talk to you about how we can help you keep the cash in your business using our innovative stocktaking systems.