Friday's till, Monday's cold store
The taproom was rammed on Saturday. The till says so many pints of the pale, so many thirds of the imperial stout, so many four-packs. Someone swapped kegs in a hurry and did not write it down. On Monday the production side needs to know how much beer the taproom used, and the numbers do not reconcile. Nobody knows whether the difference is waste, samples, staff drinks or a keg that went to a festival.
Where the gap comes from
The taproom sits between two worlds. Production thinks in kegs and litres; the till thinks in pours and products. Kegs are taken from the brewery cold store without a transfer being recorded, and the till cannot tell you that a keg ran out halfway through a shift. Tasters, line cleans and fobbing are real losses that nobody writes down.
- Keg changes are not recorded, or recorded on a whiteboard.
- The till's products do not map cleanly to beers and pour sizes.
- Samples and staff drinks are poured without a till entry.
- Line cleaning losses are not measured.
- The taproom takes beer from brewery stock without a transfer.
What an unexplained gap costs
You cannot tell whether the taproom makes the margin you think it does. Production stock figures are wrong, which affects planning and the records your finance person relies on. Staff come under suspicion when the problem may simply be a process gap. And the fix is always a manual stocktake that nobody has time for.
There is a pricing question hiding in there as well. If a third of the imperial stout is being poured as tasters, that beer's real margin over the bar is lower than the price list suggests, and you only find out if the tasters are counted.
Linking the lines to the till
- A quick keg-change screen on a tablet behind the bar: pick the line, scan or choose the keg, done. It records which beer and batch went on and when.
- Transfers from brewery stock to the taproom are recorded as they happen, so production sees the move.
- Sales are pulled from your EPOS, Square, Lightspeed or whatever you use, by product and pour size.
- Each till product is mapped once to a beer and a volume, so pours convert to litres.
- Staff drinks, tasters and line cleans get quick buttons so they are recorded without a sale.
- A weekly report compares beer out of kegs with beer sold and recorded, per beer, with the gap in litres.
| Source | What it tells us | How it is captured |
|---|---|---|
| Keg change screen | Kegs on and off each line | Tap on a tablet |
| Transfers | Beer moved from brewery to taproom | Recorded at the cold store |
| EPOS | Pours and packs sold | Pulled via the till's API |
| Waste buttons | Tasters, staff drinks, line cleans | Tap behind the bar |
| Weekly report | The gap per beer | Generated automatically |
What the taproom manager sees
A weekly page per beer: kegs used, sold, recorded waste and the gap left over. A beer with a big gap is looked at by line, shift or pour size. Production gets taproom usage without asking. Stocktakes become a check on the numbers rather than the only way to get them.
Is your taproom like this?
- Keg changes are not written down.
- Tasters and staff drinks go unrecorded.
- Production does not know how much beer the taproom took.
- Your till products do not map to beers and volumes.
- Stock only gets checked at a full stocktake.