Free spirit stocktake sheet template

Spirits are where a bar loses money quietly. A count that only records full bottles is useless because most of the value on a busy back bar is sitting in part bottles, and "about half" recorded by three different people means three different figures. Count part bottles in tenths, always by eye against the label, and be consistent — consistency matters more than precision, because you are comparing counts to each other.

Count the same route every time: back bar left to right, then the shelf, then the store. Bottle by bottle, with the sheet in the same order as the shelves. The most common stocktake error in a bar is not miscounting a bottle, it is counting the same bottle twice or missing a row.

The variance column is the point of the exercise. Expected usage comes from your till report — measures sold times measure size — and the difference between that and what actually left the bottles is your loss. Before assuming theft, check the boring explanations: over-pouring on free-pour, unlogged wastage and breakages, staff drinks, comps, unrecorded transfers between bars and cocktail specs that use more than the recipe says.

Do it at the same point in the week, after close, with the bar locked and no service running. A stocktake taken while someone is still serving is a stocktake you cannot use.