Who does Stocktaking?

When manually collecting stock data you will have either one or two staff performing a stock count at a particular location:

• one member of staff - both counts and records the quantities on a printed sheet.
• two members of staff - one calling out the product and quantity and the other recording the result on paper or directly into a spreadsheet (time permitting).

If it is a single member of staff - it would generally the bar manager or owner who are incentivised to obtain an accurate result, or an external auditor.

If you use two members of staff for manual data collection - this can speed up the process, help reduce boredom and remove the temptation to cut corners for those less incentivised.

When using Bar-Stock for stocktaking, the system effectively acts as the second person - searching for the products and recording quantities (or weights) so is generally used single-handedly.

Using a Stocktaking Firm

There are many professional stocktaking, accounting and auditing firms that will perform stocktakes for your business - generally on a monthly basis.
There are many pros to using this kind of service, but there are some cons with relying on them completely.

The Pros of using a Stocktaking Firm include:

• It can save you time if stocktaking isn't something you do regularly.
• It helps ensure that stocktaking is performed at regular intervals.
• It gives you an independant point of view from someone who has experience of other similar businesses.
• It can sometimes be politically easier to act on independent advice.
• Some Stocktaking Firms are better equiped (e.g. with Bar-Stock) so can often produce more detailed and more accurate reports.

The Cons of relying completely on a Stocktaking Firm include:

• If you do some stocktaking yourself you will understand the results better and be able to act on them with more confidence.
• A monthly report can highlight big losses but weekly or daily stocktakes or line checks are normally required to track down and illiminate issues.
• Keeping the stocktake in-house can save money - especially if stocktaking is required more than monthly.
• Stocktaking Firms are less incentivised to produce a thorough and accurate report than the business owner. Be prepared to check results.

Many business use their own staff to perform weekly stocktakes and line checks and also use Stocktaking Firms to perform monthly or quarterly audits.

We are currently setting up a directory of Stocktaking Firms that use Bar-Stock for our website visitors and customers, if you would like to be included in this list or would like to be contacted by a firm in your area please contact us.

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