Bar-i offers a range of liquor inventory services in order to address the unique needs of every bar. For some establishments, our full service inventory system is the best option. With this service, your dedicated Bar-i account manager performs every inventory audit for you and provides detailed reporting that compares what is sold vs. what is poured at your bar. This information can help you make the adjustments necessary to significantly reduce your liquor cost and maximize profitability.

If you’re not ready to invest in our full service inventory system, you can still experience a significant improvement in your inventory results using our Speed Count option. While this service won’t provide the same level of detailed data, it will significantly reduce the amount of time you spend on inventory and deliver extremely accurate results. For many small to medium sized bars looking for an effective and affordable inventory option, Speed Count provides great value.

The best way to determine the right option for your bar is to schedule a free consultation with Bar-i. But you can get an overview of the many benefits you’ll experience from our Speed Count option by reading the information below.

Affordability

The cost of using Bar-i’s Speed Count is $50/month. There is no complete inventory system on the market that is less expensive than $50/month, and for this cost you’ll be able to do as many inventory counts as you want.

You will need a PC laptop that runs Microsoft Excel in order to use Speed Count. Intaddition, there is a one-time equipment and setup charge of $650. While there’s an upfront equipment cost to use this system, the three pieces of hardware included in this cost (a bottle scale, a keg scale and a bar code reader) will provide significant benefits to your operations. And after this initial setup fee, your monthly cost will remain at the affordable level of $50.

Extremely Accurate Measurement System

There are a lot of apps available that can be used to measure the amount of liquor left in open bottles. While these apps allow you to get up and running right away with no upfront equipment costs, they fail to provide the level of accuracy necessary to effectively leverage your inventory efforts as a profitability tool.

Many of these apps are still working on a system that brings up a picture of the bottle and then requires you to manually indicate the level on the side of the bottle. This is essentially a digital tenthing method, and the results provided by these systems are neither objective nor accurate. Alcohol is sold in 1.5 oz. increments. This means your measuring system should be at least this accurate, and preferably more accurate, in order to leverage the benefits you should expect from sophisticated inventory software.

Bar-i uses scales to measure the amount of alcohol left in open bottles. Our scales are accurate to the hundredth of an ounce, ensuring the highly accurate and objective results necessary to improve profitability.

Map-Based Counting System Increases Speed of Inventory Efforts

Bars that are efficient and well-run typically have a set place for their inventory so that everything (wells, back bars, beer coolers, etc.) is always set up the same way. The reason for this organization is that it increases speed and efficiency of your bar’s operations.

Bar-i can set up the inventory map so that it follows the order that products are stored in your bar. Once we set up the system, counting becomes a one-step process of putting the bottle on the scale. The weight value is automatically updated onto the proper line in the spreadsheet, allowing you to go down the row and measure your bottles very quickly.

Other scan-based systems often require you to scan every bottle every single time you take inventory, resulting in a two-step process that takes significantly longer to complete. By taking advantage of our map-based counting system, you can significantly reduce the amount of time spent counting bottles. Your manager can then use this extra time saved to focus on the many other important tasks necessary to run your bar at optimal levels of efficiency.

It’s also very easy to change the order on Bar-i’s map in the event that you change the order of items behind the bar. As a result, you have the flexibility necessary to always leverage the time-saving benefits of our map-based counting system.

Highly Efficient Setup Process

Liquor products, bottled beers and bottles of wine already have barcodes on them. The point of these barcodes is to provide a unique identifier for a product. Your initial upfront equipment cost includes a wireless barcode scanner, which makes setting up our counting map a breeze. Simply scan the barcode of each bottle and the product will automatically be entered into your counting map.

This process is significantly more efficient than app-based systems that don’t use barcode scanners. Because these app-based systems fail to provide any hardware integration, you must manually type in the name of the product.

For example, if you type in “Jamieson” into one of these app-based systems, there will be three different sizes to record (750 ml, 1 L, 1.75 L). In addition, there may be special editions such as black barrels. This makes the process of entering products into your system much more time consuming, clunky and potentially fraught with errors.

By using hardware that scans the barcodes already on the bottles, you can set up your system much quicker and with a significantly higher level of accuracy.

Saves Time by Eliminating Manual Elements of the Inventory Process

Many inventory systems contain two manual elements:

• Each time you note the level of product in a bottle, you have to manually alphabetically search to find the item so that you can record the level. This must be done for every product you count.
  
  
• When you use an in-house inventory system, you need to manually transfer all of your data from a clipboard (or similar recording device) to a spreadsheet. This data transfer process takes a lot of time and also introduces the possibility of errors.

Bar-i’s system eliminates both of these annoying manual tasks, allowing you to save a lot of time and reduce the risk of errors. Our mapping system eliminates the need to manually search for the product when you’re recording levels for each bottle. In addition, our system automatically transfers the value from the scale to an Excel spreadsheet, providing a level of convenience that isn’t offered by most app-based systems.

Layered Error Checks Reduces your Risk of Errors

We’re human, and humans make errors from time to time. Therefore, it’s important to build processes that can identify and correct these errors. This is an important part of Bar-i’s systems.

There are several ways our system can help you reduce errors:

• Zone Counting System – After you’ve individually counted all the items on a shelf, Bar-i’s system will tell you the total number of items on that shelf. You can then quickly count the number of bottles on the shelf to make sure that figure matches the figure generated by Bar-i’s system. If these numbers don’t match, it’s a clear sign that something was counted incorrectly and you’ll know you need to recount that shelf.
  
  If you’re counting several hundred items, you’re much more likely to end up with a handful of errors if you don’t have a way to double-check your work. By double-checking your count on every shelf, you can easily identify the place the error occurred. Otherwise, you’d be forced to recount every single item in order to figure out where you went wrong.
  
  
• Automated Error Checks – As part of the inventory process, Bar-i’s system will prompt you to enter missing information such as pricing info, who you’re purchasing a product from, and the pars you’ve set. These automated error checks help guide you through the inventory process to ensure it’s always completed the same way each time. It also improves the speed and accuracy of the process.

Automated Weekly Orders

Speed Count will compare your current count with pars that get established. This allows Bar-i to determine what needs to be ordered each week. This ordering list is organized by distributor to make the ordering process easier and more efficient.

Product by Product Counts and Values

The report Bar-i generates for you provides product by product counts and values. You’ll see the following items in every report you receive:

• Previous counts
• Current counts
• How much was counted
• What the value was for each product being counted

This provides you with product by product detail in terms of what was counted and how much product is on hand during every inventory period.

Liquor Cost by Category

The pro version of our Speed Count service gives you performance data at the product level, allowing you to compare what was poured vs. what was sold. Speed Count provides a lighter level of analytics – you’ll receive liquor cost by category, not by product.

This data is graphed so that you can see how your liquor cost is evolving over time.

Seamless Upgrade to Pro Version

The counting system is the same for both Speed Count and Speed Count Pro. If at any point in the future you decide you want to leverage the profitability tools provided by our pro version, you can easily upgrade without having to set up a whole new system. You’ll already have everything in place to start leveraging our high end service right away.

If you’d like to find out if Speed Count is the right inventory tool to help you improve your bar’s operations and maximize profitability, please contact Bar-i today to schedule a free consultation. We serve clients nationwide from our offices in Denver, Colorado.