How do you count a partially full bottle?

Three common methods: estimate to the nearest tenth by eye, weigh the bottle and subtract the empty weight, or hold a strip marked in tenths against it. Weighing is the most accurate. Whichever you choose, use it consistently — consistency matters more than precision because it is the trend you are reading.

What order should a bar inventory sheet be in?

Physical order: speed rail, back bar left to right, under-bar fridges, display fridges, then cellar and dry store. This means the counter walks the room once, and because the order is the same every month, a skipped item shows as a gap in the same place.

Why is my bar variance so high?

Most often free pouring rather than measuring, then unrecorded comps and staff drinks, then unrecorded spillage. Also check for stock moved to another bar or a function, a delivery received mid-count, and cases counted as bottles before concluding it is theft.

Stocktake6 min read

Bar inventory: counting the bottles that are already open

Counting sealed stock is easy. A bar is hard because most of what is worth counting is half-empty, and how you handle those bottles decides whether your pour cost means anything at all.

Last updated 24 August 2026

The three ways to count an open bottle

Every bar has to choose one of these and apply it consistently. Consistency matters more than precision: a slightly rough method used the same way every month gives you a usable trend, while a precise method used differently by two people gives you noise.

Method	How	Accuracy vs speed
Tenths by eye	Judge the bottle as 0.1 to 1.0 full and write the decimal.	Fast, rough. Fine for beer and mixers. The usual starting point.
Weighing	Scale, minus the empty bottle weight, divided by full liquid weight.	Accurate and repeatable. Slower, and you need the tare weights once.
Marked bottle	A strip marked in tenths held against the bottle.	Middle ground. Removes most of the disagreement between counters.

Walk the room in the same order every time

Build the sheet in the physical order of the bar — speed rail first, then back bar left to right, then fridges, then the cellar. Not alphabetically, and not by category.

There are two reasons, and the second is the important one. Physical order means the counter walks the room once. And counting in the same order every month means an item that gets skipped shows up as a gap in the same place, instead of hiding.

Speed rail and wells
Back bar, left to right, shelf by shelf
Under-bar fridges and taps
Glass-door display fridges
Cellar and dry store
Anything held elsewhere — function room, office, off-site

Pour cost, and what a bad number is telling you

Pour cost is the cost of the liquor you used divided by the revenue it generated, as a percentage. It is the number that tells you whether the bar is leaking.

Cost of liquor used is opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock. Divide that by beverage sales for the same period, and multiply by 100.

(Opening + purchases − closing) ÷ beverage sales × 100 = pour cost %
Compare it to your own last three periods, not to a figure from the internet — the right number depends entirely on your pricing and product mix.
A pour cost that jumps with no price change is over-pouring, unrecorded comps, wastage, or theft — in that order of likelihood.
A pour cost that falls suspiciously is usually a counting error, not a win. Check the closing count before celebrating.

Where the variance usually is

When the count does not match, these are the places to look, roughly in the order they turn out to be the cause.

Free pouring instead of jiggering — the largest and most consistent leak in most bars.
Comps and staff drinks going unrecorded.
Spillage and breakage nobody wrote down.
Stock moved between bars or to a function and counted at neither.
A delivery received during the count.
Wrong unit on the sheet — cases counted as bottles.
Theft. Real, but usually not the first answer, and the hardest to prove without eliminating everything above first.

Two people, one sheet

A bar count is faster with two people, and it also gets more accurate — one counts, one records, and neither is putting a bottle down to write.

The failure mode is both of them working from separate copies that have to be merged at midnight. If you are using paper, split by section and never overlap. If you can use one live sheet on two phones, do that instead.

Or let Stocktake do it

Counting a bar with Regentflow means everyone works from the same sheet on their own phone — and voice mode lets you say the number instead of putting the bottle down.

See how the stocktake app works See pricing

Questions

How do you count a partially full bottle?: Three common methods: estimate to the nearest tenth by eye, weigh the bottle and subtract the empty weight, or hold a strip marked in tenths against it. Weighing is the most accurate. Whichever you choose, use it consistently — consistency matters more than precision because it is the trend you are reading.
How do you calculate pour cost?: Opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock gives the cost of liquor used. Divide that by beverage sales for the same period and multiply by 100. Compare the result to your own previous periods rather than to a generic benchmark.
What order should a bar inventory sheet be in?: Physical order: speed rail, back bar left to right, under-bar fridges, display fridges, then cellar and dry store. This means the counter walks the room once, and because the order is the same every month, a skipped item shows as a gap in the same place.
Why is my bar variance so high?: Most often free pouring rather than measuring, then unrecorded comps and staff drinks, then unrecorded spillage. Also check for stock moved to another bar or a function, a delivery received mid-count, and cases counted as bottles before concluding it is theft.