In Part 1, we began discussing the benefits of using modern liquor inventory software instead of outdated inventory methods such as the clipboard system. However, there are several other important ways these systems can improve your bar’s operations.
Improved Speed
The faster you can complete your liquor inventory, the better. Reducing inventory time frees up your staff to focus on other aspects of their job, such as tending to customers. There are several ways that switching to liquor inventory software will help improve the speed of this task:
- Dedicated counting tool – Bar-i’s mapping system helps you take inventory faster by matching the order of products on your inventory list with the order of products as they are organized on your bar or in your storeroom.
- No data transfer – As you record counting information into our system, it is being recorded directly onto a spreadsheet. This eliminates the time associated with data transfer.
- Ease of analysis – Once you finish taking inventory using Bar-i’s software, you are done. Our professionals will analyze your data for you and provide you with a detailed report that is easy to understand and contains recommendations on how to improve the performance of your bar.
POS Integration
It is very difficult to integrate your POS report with your inventory totals using the clipboard system. This forces bars to calculate liquor cost by category, such as “draft beer,” “bottled beer,” “liquor,” or “wine.” Unfortunately, this does not provide you with the kind of detailed information necessary to determine how each individual product is performing.
Bar-i’s liquor inventory software allows you to integrate your POS report in order to calculate the liquor cost of each individual product. This provides you with much greater detail regarding which products are performing well and which ones are performing poorly.
Provides Actionable Information
Using liquor inventory software ensures you obtain the actionable information necessary to help you get a full picture of what is going on at your bar. By obtaining actionable information, you can not only understand what is going on with your liquor cost, but why certain products have a certain liquor cost.
Using modern liquor inventory software will help you gather this actionable information by:
- Comparing what is rung in vs. what is poured – For most bars, 15-20% of products being poured are not actually rung into your register. By comparing what is sold to what is actually poured, you can identify which products are not being rung in properly, allowing you to correct the situation. This helps you reduce shrinkage and increase profits.
- Comparing individual products side by side – Bar-i’s liquor inventory software allows you to see the individual liquor costs of different products of a same type (for example, all your whiskeys). By comparing these products side by side, you can adjust your pricing to maximize your profitability based on the varying liquor costs of each individual product.
Improved Ordering
Bar-i’s software uses a dynamic par system that helps you more accurately place orders for new products. The actual usage of each product sold at your bar will drive how these dynamic pars are set, and these pars will adjust as the usage in your bar changes over time. Based on these numbers, our system will generate an automatic ordering report which will tell you how much of each product needs to be reordered every period.
To learn more about the benefits of using modern liquor inventory software at your bar, please contact Bar-i today to schedule a free consultation. We provide services to bars nationwide from our offices in Denver, Colorado.