Pour cost, split the way the room sells
Pour cost is what the liquid cost divided by what the till rang, and one blended percentage tells you almost nothing. We run it weekly in four lines, draught, bottles and cans, spirits and wine, each with its own purchases, its own counts and its own sales pulled from the POS. Draught and spirits carry most of a pub’s shrink risk, so they get the weekly scrutiny; packaged beer mostly needs an honest count.
The comparison that earns its keep is theoretical against actual. Recipes and menu prices say what every drink rung should have consumed; invoices and counts say what actually left the shelf. The distance between the two is overpours, spills, foam, comps that never hit a button and product that walked out the back. Our End-to-End Accounting engagement puts a number on that gap every week instead of letting it hide inside an annual cost line, because a shrink problem you can date is a shrink problem you can end.
Draught yield, keg by keg
A keg holds a fixed number of litres, which makes draught the one category where arithmetic settles arguments. Every keg tapped has a theoretical sales value: litres divided by glass size, multiplied by menu price. We post keg purchases by brand, carry keg deposits as a returnable balance instead of an expense, and compare pours rung through the POS against kegs emptied over the same stretch.
| Keg size | 473 ml glasses, theoretical | 568 ml pints, theoretical |
|---|---|---|
| 20 L | about 42 | about 35 |
| 30 L | about 63 | about 52 |
| 50 L | about 105 | about 88 |
| 58.6 L | about 123 | about 103 |
Those are ceiling numbers, before foam and line cleaning, and that is exactly why they are useful. When a 50 L keg that should pour roughly 105 sleeves keeps closing out near 90, the books have converted a vague suspicion about waste into a dated conversation about line maintenance, glycol temperature or free pours.
Counts and purchases that hold the line
The counting rhythm we set up is a full liquor count monthly and spot checks weekly on the fast movers. Spirits are counted to tenths of a bottle; draught is tracked by kegs on, kegs off. Apps such as Partender, WISK or Backbar turn a full count into an evening’s work, and their valuations flow into QuickBooks Online so the balance sheet carries a real inventory figure rather than last year’s estimate.
Spot checks matter because variance localizes. A month-end count says something disappeared; a Tuesday check of six fast-moving bottles narrows it to a week, and often to a shift. Purchases get the same structure: LCBO licensee invoices, Beer Store orders and direct deliveries from local breweries are coded to draught, packaged, spirits or wine as they arrive, so each pour cost line is built from invoice data and a brewery price increase surfaces in next week’s percentage, not in the year-end review.
Nights that end in cash, and the payroll behind them
We post the nightly close from the POS every morning, with cash, debit and credit tenders matched first to the till count and then to the bank deposit, and every over or short logged by shift instead of absorbed into a slush line. Late, cash-heavy trade is where books drift first; a next-morning rhythm keeps the drift at zero, and it happens to build exactly the reconciliation chain the tax side relies on if the CRA ever asks questions.
Payroll runs inside the same engagement, with a bar-specific wrinkle: everyone selling or serving liquor in Ontario needs Smart Serve certification, so we keep certification dates filed alongside the payroll records, letting an AGCO inspection and a payroll review read from one source. Source deductions, stat and vacation pay for a late-night roster, prompt ROEs in a high-turnover trade, and house-controlled tip pools flowing through payroll are all part of the routine, with the controlled-versus-direct tip classification handled properly on the filing side.
The month-end pack for an owner behind the bar
Month-end lands as a short pack an owner can read between deliveries: wet/dry revenue split, pour cost by category, labour against sales, the draught variance line and where the cash went. Those same numbers are what turn scheduling and event questions into decisions, which is where our Fractional CFO work picks up for bars across Mississauga and the GTA weighing a patio, a stage or a second room. Fees are quoted in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call, so the cost is fixed before the first count happens.
