Liquor inventory systems: Weighing your liquor bottles. The typical way to take liquor inventory in a bar is use a clipboard to record liquor inventory levels manually and then enter this information into excel so that liquor cost can be calculated. Relying on liquor cost to measure performance at bars is the primary reason why 20% liquor inventory shrinkage is the industry standard: When you use liquor cost to run your bar, you cannot identify when product is missing.

My previous blog article “Liquor inventory systems: From free to full service” identifies the various choices of third-party-provided liquor inventory systems which are available today to help bars control their liquor cost. These liquor inventory systems will help you move beyond liquor cost and be able to track the performance of individual products. Two of the key functions these systems perform are accurately tracking the usage of individual products and integrating with your POS system so you can compare usage to what was rung.

Developing your own liquor inventory system is another option. This is a complex undertaking which I don’t think is the best solution for most bars and restaurants given the availability of well priced out-of-the-box alternatives. If you do choose to go down this route however one issue you will need to overcome is how to take inventory more accurately and efficiently than using a clipboard and “tenthing” your open liquor bottles. In my opinion by far the best way to do this is by weighing your open bottles. Here are two links that will help you to achieve this:

• You will need to buy a scale which has a USB lead so you can connect it to your computer. We use the Ohaus Scout Pro SP6000 which has the USB capability (sold separately). The best price we’ve found is at: http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/ohaus-scout-sp6000.html

• Secondly you need to use special software which allows the open bottle weights to be written directly onto your computer so you don’t have to manually enter them. Taltech’s BCWedge software is the best solution we’ve found to date to do this: http://www.taltech.com/products/bcwedge/