Bar Inventory Management: How to Track Bottles, Pours and Comps

Set up one sheet per product and per location: stockroom, main bar or any other service point. Count cans by the unit, sealed bottles by the bottle, and drinks poured by the glass in one consistent unit, such as milliliters. A bottle sent from the stockroom to the bar is a transfer. It's not a sale and it's not a loss.

Write down the standard pour for open bottles. Hypothetical example: a 750 ml bottle poured in 50 ml measures gives you 15 pours in theory, before any loss. That conversion is what makes checking possible. It doesn't prove every pour is identical. Pick a measuring method your team can repeat every time.

For each product, record opening stock, incoming deliveries and transfers, then sales, comps, breakage, returns and outgoing transfers. Every comp needs an approved reason, even though the guest doesn't pay for it. Do the end-of-shift count in the same location and the same unit as the sheet.

A purely hypothetical example in cans: the bar opens with 24, receives 8 from the stockroom, sells 20, comps 2, breaks 1 and sends 1 back to the stockroom. Expected stock: 24 + 8 − 20 − 2 − 1 − 1 = 8 cans. If the count comes to 7, the variance is −1. Look for the cause in sales and stock movements before you write it off as a loss.

Tracking an open bottle takes a different approach than a case of cans. Hypothetical example: from a 750 ml bottle, six 50 ml pours sold and one 50 ml pour comped add up to 350 ml out, so 400 ml should be left. If what you measure is different, look at pour sizes, spillage during service and any rounds that weren't logged.

Don't convert that volume straight into a number of sealed bottles without noting that it's been opened. For expensive products or ones that often run out, a quick check at every close is more useful than a full inventory whose variances rarely get explained. Set your reorder point based on how fast the product actually sells and how long your supplier takes to deliver.

When the last sellable unit is gone, tell the floor and update the mobile menu. Zeat lets you list drinks, sizes and prices. Per-product quantities and par levels depend on how you set things up, so check them in your demo. Test a sold-out drink and ask to see what the guest, the server and the bar each see.

Zeat doesn't replace your stockroom sheet, your pour measurements, transfers between outlets or your accounting inventory. What it does right away is stop guests from ordering a drink you can no longer pour. Without that update, every order you can't fill ties up the table and the staff while the guest picks something else.

Each week, pick a few high-risk products and compare variances, stock-outs and returns. More comps can be a deliberate sales decision, but they need to stay visible so they don't look like missing stock. Repeated stock-outs can come from a par level that's too low, a forgotten transfer, or a drink you're promoting while the supplier's deliveries are unreliable.

Give every action an owner: check a stock movement, adjust the next order or temporarily take a product off the menu. Review the impact at the next shift. The sheet keeps the conversation on facts, not hunches about what went missing.