Expert Advice on Hospitality Topics

Monitoring Your Bar's Performance: The Closeout and Audit

Posted by Nick Kaoukis on Mon, Nov, 12, 2012 @ 08:11 AM
By Douglas Robert Brown
Atlantic Publishing

 

Bar Sales PercentagesAt the end of each month, it is important to close out all expenses and sales and balance all accounts. This process ensures that finances are being monitored and helps prevent financial problems down the line. It also lets you, the bar manager, see whether the bar is making a profit or not and what changes (if any) need to be made to operations.

Closeout actually depends on what goes on financially in your bar all month. It is essential that all expenses are recorded each day. Not having a reliable list of expenses incurred is sure to result in inaccurate bookkeeping and many problems at audit time. You need to record all expenses—including those that are prepaid or those for which you get a bill.

Monthly Audit Procedures

On the last day of the month:

1. Gather the completed inventory forms for food, liquor, wine, and operational supplies.

2. Using current invoices and past inventories, cost out the Inventory Form. The unit cost (or price) entered on the Inventory Form must correspond to the item and unit in the actual inventory. Correct prices are ensured by continual evaluation of invoices and/or contact with the suppliers.

3. Ensure that the employees organize and clean the storage areas and walk-ins so that the ending inventory may easily be taken the following morning. Combine all containers and bottles. Organize and label all shelves.

4. Schedule the bookkeeper and the employees involved in taking the physical inventory—the assistant manager, kitchen director, bar manager, and general manager—to arrive early in the morning prior to the start of business on the first of the month.

5. Schedule the preparation cooks to arrive an hour after the inventory crew so that you may inventory the food areas without disturbing them.

On the following morning, the first of the month:

6. The bookkeeper should arrive as early as possible in order to complete all of his or her work prior to management's completion of the inventory:

A. Reconcile and record all the transactions from the previous day, as
usual.

B. Enter the information on the Daily Sales Report Form. Total,
double-check, and verify all the columns.

C. From the employee time cards complete, total, double-check, and verify the Labor Analysis Form.

D. Ensure that all purchases are recorded in the Purchase Ledger. Complete, total, double-check, and verify the Purchase Ledger for each company. Total the purchases in each expenditure category: food, liquor, wine, and each individual operational category.

Ensure that all paid-outs entered on the Cashier's and Bartender's Reports have been posted into the appropriate Purchase Ledger categories. Total the cash paid-outs. Add this figure into the purchase total for each expense category.

Computation of Key Percentages


 

This article is an excerpt from the The Professional Bar & Beverage Managers Handbook: How to Open and Operate a Financially Successful Bar, Tavern and Nightclub, authored by Douglas Robert Brown, published by Atlantic Publishing Group. This excerpt has been reprinted with permission of the publisher. To purchase this book go to:

Atlantic Publishing Company
Amazon.com

Topics: Bar inventory, NightClub Management, bar business, Reducing Liquor Costs, bar control

Loss Prevention: The Bar Manager's Key to Quick Profit Growth

Posted by Nick Kaoukis on Thu, Aug, 16, 2012 @ 13:08 PM

How Keeping Close Tabs On Your Liquor Supply Can Both Cut Costs & Generate Revenue

Inventory ControlIndustry studies have consistently shown that a full 25% to 30% of a bar's liquor inventory never converts into registered sales. That is the equivalent of about six to eight 1.25 oz portions per bottle (which should yield at least 25 portions.) This loss of liquor volume--due to unauthorized comps, over-pouring, spillage or theft--should be of great concern to any bar manager. 

While losing 25% of a $25 bottle may not seem like a very serious problem--an unavoidable cost of doing business--the true cost is much greater than that $6 or $7 per bottle. The question you need to ask yourself is: Where is this lost liquor going? And how is it affecting sales? For instance, if your bartender is not pouring 1.25 oz portions, but is instead pouring 2 oz portions (say, perhaps, to curry favor with clients and receive a bigger tip), you're not just losing liquor volume, you're also losing potential sales. Where the customer may have been disposed to buy three drinks (3.75 ounces), he may now be content to buy just two 2-ounce drinks. Your bartender's actions, in this case, haven't merely cost you a dollar's worth of liquor, they may well have cost you $6-$8 in lost sales revenue (depending on how you price your drinks). And that's just for one customer buying two drinks. How often is this occurring? What if your bartender also happens to be giving away free drinks without your knowledge or authorization? The point is: "shrinkage" does not only affect supply costs, it can also affect revenues in a big way. 

That's why loss prevention is so important. The profitability of your business depends on whole bunch of variables--the location of your establishment, the overall economy, ever-changing customer tastes.... Achieving profit growth can be difficult and can rarely be accomplished overnight. Increasing the price of your drinks is risky, and can prove more harmful than helpful as far as your bottom line is concerned. And growing your clientele usually takes time. The best way to increase profits in the short-term, therefore, is not to try to fiddle with pricing or to increase your client base. (Of course, this is something you should always be doing. But it is not easy to do in the short-term.) The quickest way to increase revenue is to make the most of the clients you're already serving. And one way to do this is to improve operations by getting tighter grip on your inventory. Loss of liquor supply at double-digit levels is not an "unavoidable cost of doing business". It is "bad business". And it is entirely avoidable. Put simply, loss prevention can pay big dividends. What's more, it can be achieved quite quickly through the implementation of a quality liquor inventory control system.

Topics: liquor inventory, Bar inventory, bar inventory levels, bar efficiency, bar profitability, Bar Management, Liquor cost, Liquor Inventory savings, alcohol cost, Increasing Profits, Reducing Liquor Costs, bar control, inventory control, managing liquor costs

The Bottom Line: Reducing Costs & Increasing Profits

Posted by Nick Kaoukis on Wed, Jul, 06, 2011 @ 09:07 AM
Cutting liquor costsBy Chris Parry
Atlantic Publishing
 

Part 1 of 2: The Profits

 
What does each drink cost you?
Without profits, you're out of business, but so many managers see profits as what the owners worry about. Your job is as much to grow profits as to sustain them, so consider putting a little elbow grease into the growth of your establishment by learning about the nickel and dime stuff. A good bar operator needs to wear a number of hats, but the four most important are that of promoter, psychologist, host and accountant. This isn't to say that you need to be of professional standard in all four areas, but you do need a working knowledge of each area, so that you can fine-tune those aspects of your business. On the accounting side of things, you need to be able to assess what every piece of your business costs. Also, as your spirits and liqueurs are a very large segment of your inventory, you should learn exactly how much each and every drink you sell actually costs you. Follow these exercises and you'll be able to assess exactly which drinks bring you the highest profit margin and which drinks could use a price increase.
  • Cost per ounce. There is 33.8 ounces in a liter, so if you're paying $15 a liter for a certain spirit, simply dividing that amount by 33.8 will bring you the beverage's ounce cost (in this case, $0.44). If your bottle size is 750ml, then divide the bottle cost by 25.35 to get the ounce cost. Likewise, dividing a 500ml bottle by 16.9 will give you that product's ounce cost.
  • Total beverage cost. When calculating what it costs you to provide a mixed drink to a customer, simply figure out the ounce cost of each item in the drink. A half-shot means adding half the ounce cost of that shot, whereas a double shot would mean doubling the ounce cost. Make sure to include every aspect of the drink, such as mixers, dashes of cordial and garnishes. The total of each of these ounce costs will be your "beverage cost" for that drink.
  • Cost percentage.  When you're investing in inventory, you want to know that you're getting a good return on your money and the best way to figure out your percentage return is to estimate your cost percentage for each drink you sell. Simply divide your ounce cost (or bottle cost) by the sale price you've set for that item and then multiply that number by 100. The total will tell you exactly what percentage of the final drink price you are spending on the purchase of its raw contents. The lower the number, the more profit you're making.
  • Gross profit margin. To figure out each item's gross profit, simply deduct the cost price from the sale price. To figure out your gross profit margin, take the gross profit, divide it by the sales price and multiply it by 100. The figure remaining is your gross profit margin. You may well find it varies greatly from beverage to beverage. This will tell you which items have a high enough profit margin to push on your customers and which items are just making up the numbers.

 

 

This article is an excerpt from the Food Service Professional Guide to Bar & Beverage Operation, authored by Chris Parry, published by Atlantic Publishing Company. This excerpt has been reprinted with permission of the publisher. To purchase this book go to:

Atlantic Publishing Company 
Amazon.com

Topics: bar business, alcohol cost, Increasing Profits, Reducing Costs, Reducing Liquor Costs, inventory control