In a bar stocktake, count each product on one line in whatever units you see: cartons, inners, single bottles and open bottles in tenths. Store the conversions on the product, compare what you used with what the till sold, and you get pour cost per drink and a list of drinks earning below target.
Key takeaways
- Count cartons, inners, singles and open bottles on one line, with conversions stored on the product.
- Estimate open bottles in tenths, and weigh only the expensive top-shelf spirits for accuracy.
- Pour cost is the cost of the pour divided by the menu price excluding GST.
- A 35 ml free pour instead of 30 ml adds about 17% to the spirit cost per drink.
- Compare usage against till sales per product to find over-pouring, comps and miscounts.
- Sort drinks by how far they sit below target GP and fix the worst first.
In this guide 7 sections
A bar holding 93 bottles of one lager, split across cartons, six-packs and loose stubbies, should record them on one stocktake line in those units and let the product record do the conversion. Open spirits go down in tenths. Set the result against what the till sold and pour cost per drink, and the drinks earning below target, fall straight out of the numbers.
Every bar manager knows the Monday morning version of this. Three cartons of lager in the cool room, two six-packs and nine loose stubbies in the fridge, eleven bottles of house gin on the back shelf and four open on the speed rail. The sheet wants one number. Someone counts in bottles, someone in cartons, the open bottles get "about half" each, and by the time it’s in the spreadsheet nobody knows whether the gin is short or just counted differently.
What makes a bar stocktake different?
A bar stocktake is different because the same product lives in three or four sizes at once and the stock is worth a lot per unit. A kitchen counts kilos of onions; a bar counts a carton, an inner, a single and a part-poured bottle of the same spirit, often in three locations.
Tax is a big part of what you are counting. From 3 August 2026 the Australian Taxation Office lists excise on spirits not elsewhere included at $110.15 per litre of alcohol. A 700 ml bottle at 40% holds 0.28 litres of alcohol, or about $30.84 of excise in every bottle (our calculation). A miscounted bottle of spirits is real money, not a rounding error.
- Excise per litre of alcohol on spirits not elsewhere included (Australia, ATO, from 3 August 2026)
- $110.15
- Excise in one 700 ml bottle of 40% spirits (Australia, our calculation from the ATO rate, 2026)
- $30.84
What a bar count has to handle:
- A units ladder. Carton to inner (six-pack or four-pack) to single bottle to millilitres.
- Several locations. Cool room, bottle shop shelf, back bar, speed rail, function bar.
- Open bottles. Spirits, wine by the glass, fortifieds and liqueurs, all part-poured.
- Kegs and post-mix, where the count is in litres or by weight.
- Transfers to the kitchen (wine for sauces, beer for batter) that never go through the till.
How do you count cartons, singles and part-full bottles?
Count cartons, inners and singles on the same line in their own units, and count open bottles in tenths. The product record holds the conversion: one carton is 24 bottles, one inner is 6, one bottle is 330 ml or 700 ml.
So the line for a lager reads "3 cartons, 2 inners, 9 singles" and the system works out 72 + 12 + 9 = 93 bottles. Nobody does long multiplication at the cool room door. The same one-line approach speeds up the kitchen side too; see how to make a restaurant stocktake faster.
For open bottles:
- Hold the bottle at eye level against a light and estimate in tenths. 0.6 means about six-tenths left.
- Be consistent about shape. Tapered bottles fool the eye; agree as a team where "half" sits on your common bottles.
- Weigh only the expensive lines. For top-shelf spirits, a set of scales and the empty bottle weight gives a more exact figure. For house pours, tenths are close enough.
- Count the cool room first and the speed rail last, so you don’t count stock that’s being moved.
- Record what went to the kitchen or to a function bar as a transfer, not as a mystery shortage.
Count at the same point every week, after close on the last trading night. Counting Sunday after close one week and Tuesday before opening the next makes usage swing for reasons that have nothing to do with pouring.
How do you work out pour cost?
Pour cost is what a drink costs you to pour, divided by what you sell it for, ex GST. Work it out for each drink first, then for the bar as a whole.
The standard measure helps. The Department of Health standard drinks guide defines a standard drink as 10 g of pure alcohol, and a 30 ml nip of spirits at 40% is about one standard drink. That makes 30 ml a convenient house pour to cost against, and it’s the measure used in the example below.
A worked example: pour cost on a gin and tonic
Say a bar buys house gin at $45 a bottle ex GST, 700 ml, poured in 30 ml nips, and sells a gin and tonic for $12 including GST. Tonic and garnish cost $0.60.
| Step | Working | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per nip | $45 ÷ 700 ml × 30 ml | $1.93 |
| Cost per drink | $1.93 + $0.60 tonic and garnish | $2.53 |
| Price ex GST | $12 ÷ 1.1 | $10.91 |
| Pour cost | $2.53 ÷ $10.91 | 23.2% |
In Excel, put bottle cost in B2, bottle ml in B3, pour ml in B4, mixer and garnish in B5 and the menu price inc GST in B6:
=((B2/B3*B4)+B5)/(B6/1.1)For the bar as a whole, actual pour cost is opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock, divided by bar sales ex GST. That’s the same formula as actual food cost, which we cover in how to calculate food cost percentage.
Where does over-pouring show up?
Over-pouring shows up as the gap between what you used and what you sold. If the count says 40 nips of gin were used and the till says 32 gin drinks were sold, eight nips have gone somewhere: free pours, heavy pours, spills, staff drinks or a miscount.
Small pours add up. Using the example above, a 35 ml free pour instead of 30 ml raises the gin cost per drink from $1.93 to $2.25, about 17% more, and moves pour cost from 23.2% to 26.1% (our calculation). Nobody notices that on one drink. Over a Friday night it adds up.
To find it:
- Compare usage to sales per product as well as for the whole bar.
- Look at the same spirit across shifts or bartenders where you can.
- Check comps and staff drinks are rung through the till as well as poured.
- Recount any line that is far off before you have the conversation with the team. A miscounted open bottle looks exactly like a heavy pour.
How do you find drinks earning below target?
Set a target pour cost or GP for each category (beer, wine by the glass, house spirits, cocktails), work out each drink’s actual figure, and sort the list worst first. The drinks at the top of that list are where your margin is going.
Common reasons a drink sits below target:
- The supplier price went up and the menu price didn’t. Our guide to catching supplier price rises before they eat your margin covers checking invoices line by line.
- The recipe on paper isn’t the recipe at the bar. The spec says 30 ml; the team pours 45 ml because "that’s how we do it".
- Garnish and mixer costs were never included.
- Wine by the glass is poured at 175 ml on a 150 ml price.
- Happy hour pricing carried on after the promotion ended.
Fix the price, the spec or the pour, then check again after the next count. Reporting tools are catching on in hospitality: in Lightspeed’s APAC survey reported by Australian Bartender, almost three in five venues said they save more than an hour a day, with 57% citing reporting tools (vendor-authored, sample not stated).
How Restaurant AI Manager helps with the bar stocktake
Restaurant AI Manager, Open Pantry’s AI restaurant operations software, handles the bar stocktake, pours and bar orders. Counts happen on a phone in shelf order, with cartons, inners, singles and open bottles on one line, and you can scan barcodes with the phone camera or finish a count with no signal in the cool room. Blind counts and recount nudges keep numbers honest.
It shows which drinks earn below their target GP, ranked in dollars on the morning briefing, and bar orders are built from par in a few taps, waiting for a person to press Send. See how it works for bars and pubs, or pick the bar role in the free, no-sign-up live demo.
So, how do you run a good bar stocktake?
A good bar stocktake counts each product on one line in mixed units (cartons, inners, singles and open bottles in tenths) at the same time each week. Compare what you used with what you sold to find over-pouring, work out pour cost per drink ex GST, and fix the drinks sitting furthest below target first.
Frequently asked questions
How do I count open bottles accurately in a bar stocktake?
Hold each open bottle at eye level against a light and estimate what is left in tenths, so six-tenths is recorded as 0.6. Agree as a team where half sits on your common bottle shapes, because tapered bottles fool the eye. For expensive top-shelf spirits, weigh the bottle and subtract the empty bottle weight for a more exact figure. Tenths are close enough for house pours.
How do you calculate pour cost for a spirit and mixer drink?
Divide the bottle cost by its volume in millilitres and multiply by the pour size to get the cost of the nip, then add mixer and garnish. Divide that by the menu price excluding GST. As an example, a $45 bottle of 700 ml gin poured at 30 ml with $0.60 of tonic, sold at $12 including GST, has a pour cost of about 23%.
How often should a bar do a stocktake of all its stock?
Many bars count weekly, at the same point every week, usually after close on the last trading night before deliveries arrive. Weekly counts let you compare usage against till sales while the week is still fresh enough to explain. Counting at different points in the week makes usage swing for reasons unrelated to pouring, so consistent timing matters as much as how often you count.
How can a bar manager tell if staff are over-pouring?
Compare what the stocktake says was used with what the till says was sold for each product. If 40 nips of gin were used but only 32 gin drinks were rung up, eight nips are unaccounted for through free pours, heavy pours, spills, staff drinks or a miscount. Recount the line first, because a miscounted open bottle looks exactly like a heavy pour.
How much excise is in a bottle of spirits in Australia?
From 3 August 2026 the Australian Taxation Office lists excise on spirits not elsewhere included at $110.15 per litre of alcohol. A 700 ml bottle at 40% holds 0.28 litres of alcohol, so it carries about $30.84 of excise. That is why miscounting even a few bottles of spirits in a bar stocktake makes a noticeable difference to pour cost.
