Are You Making These 5 Common Bar Inventory Management Mistakes?

Bar inventory management has a number of benefits. It gives you oversight of your stock, helps you make better ordering decisions, and it provides insights on turnover, costing, and your overall bottom line.

There are, however, a lot of moving parts when it comes to maintaining a proper bar inventory and that leaves room for mistakes.

With that in mind, here are some of the most common mistakes when it comes to managing bar inventory. We hope this blog helps your business to avoid making them!

Not doing inventory

If you aren’t doing bar inventory, you are putting your business at risk. Sure, it can take a fair bit of time to do it right, but at the end of the day, the time it takes is hugely outweighed by the time, money and resources it will ultimately save.

There’s no doubt about it, bar inventory management will make your business more profitable!

Using the wrong bar inventory management system

There are a number of ways you can keep track of your bar inventory. This includes old school pen and paper, forms, manual spreadsheets and automated software and apps.

Ultimately, the option you choose will depend on your bar’s specific needs and budget, but your main focus should be on accurate information, while at the same time limiting resource strain.

That’s why we love bar inventory software. Bar inventory management systems reduce the time you spend doing inventory, limit human error, improve the accuracy of counts and measure insightful data such as inventory variance.

No scheduling or policies

Haphazard inventory management is a recipe for disaster, regardless of how good your management system is.

Once you have decided on your system, the next step is writing up procedures to ensure every staff member is following the same process and properly scheduling the exact date when inventory counts should be completed. It’s then important to follow up to ensure everyone is fulfilling their responsibilities.

Having one person on inventory

Inventory shouldn’t be left to just one employee. This reduces accountability and oversight, increases errors and provides the perfect conditions for employee fraud. You should always have two to three employees trained and conducting inventory. This will increase accuracy and put less stress on individual employees. Don’t have too many employees on inventory though, this could lead to confusion and inaccurate counts!

Not using inventory data accurately

It’s not enough to simply record your inventory. For it to be of real value to your bar, you need to review the information so you can make better decisions for your business.

For example, using inventory data to watch for deadstock that may be going to waste will help you make better ordering decisions moving forward.

Reviewing your inventory history will also help you better forecast future sales to improve ordering. By gaining insight into the inventory you actually used, you can make menu decisions that increase sales, improve customer satisfaction and ramp up your bottom line.

With bar inventory management software, you will be able to generate reports that automatically provide all of this information for you. For more information on how to prevent these common mistakes or to learn more about the benefits of a bar inventory management system, contact us today!