Bar inventory in Google Sheets: The honest truth

Last updated: 26 June 2026

Most pub operators think a spreadsheet is cheaper than proper stock control, right up until they realise they’re losing £3,000–£5,000 a year and have no idea where it went.

I spent three years running bar inventory across Google Sheets before I faced the truth: I had no actual visibility of what was disappearing from my cellar and why. A 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub between £3,000–£5,000 a year—and a messy spreadsheet won’t catch it until the damage is done.

The problem isn’t Google Sheets itself. The problem is what spreadsheets let you get away with. You can skip a line check. You can forget to weigh a partial spirit bottle. You can ignore wastage notes. And nobody tells you until your stocktake variance is 4%.

In this article, I’ll tell you exactly how to run bar inventory in Google Sheets properly—and more importantly, when to stop relying on it.

The Spreadsheet Trap

Google Sheets doesn’t fail because it’s a bad tool. It fails because it lets you be lazy.

Here’s what happens: You build a Sheets inventory template. You list every product. You plug in delivery quantities. You run a stocktake quarterly and update the file. You feel organised.

What you don’t do is reconcile against till data. You don’t dip every cask. You don’t weigh open spirit bottles. You certainly don’t log wastage the same day. And because there’s no trigger in the system forcing you to, you just… don’t.

Six months later, your variance is 3.2%. You have no idea why. Was it theft? Over-pouring? A delivery invoice error from four months ago? The spreadsheet doesn’t tell you.

I learned this the hard way. When I was running stock on a tangle of spreadsheets and still losing track of partial kegs and spirit measures, my weekly variance was pure guesswork. I’d look at a partial keg and estimate. I’d guess at open spirits. I’d remember some of the wastage but not all of it. The reconciliation never happened because there was no system forcing me to do it the same day.

How to Set Up Google Sheets for Bar Inventory

If you’re going to use Google Sheets, do it properly. Here’s the minimum viable structure:

The Core Tabs You Need

• Stock Count Tab: Product name, opening stock, deliveries, closing stock (you fill this in), variance column that auto-calculates, notes field for wastage.
• Till Reconciliation Tab: Daily sales by product (pulled from your EPOS), running total for the week, variance against physical count.
• Wastage Log: Date, product, reason (spillage, line cleaning, breakage, guest comp), quantity, staff member name.
• Delivery Tracker: Supplier, invoice date, products received, cost, delivery date for matching against invoices.
• Weekly Variance Report: Simple summary—opening stock plus deliveries minus sales minus wastage minus closing stock equals variance. This should be close to zero.

The reason you need these separate tabs is discipline. Each one forces a different conversation. The till reconciliation forces you to ask: “Did we actually sell what the till says we sold?” The wastage log forces you to name the waste. The variance report forces you to do the maths.

Making It Actually Work

Set a fixed day and time for the count. I ran mine every Thursday morning at 9am, before service. I’d dip every cask in the cellar with a steel dipstick. I’d weigh every open spirit bottle on a set of scales. I’d log any spillage or breakage from the previous week in the wastage tab. Then I’d reconcile that day’s till data against what the stock count said we should have.

This took me 45 minutes a week. Before I built that routine, my variance was 2-3%. Within a fortnight, it was 0.4%—a number I could actually trust.

The key difference: I didn’t let myself leave the cellar without filling in the spreadsheet. The count and the reconciliation happened the same day. No guessing. No memory.’

What Actually Matters When You Count Stock

Most operators track the wrong number. They count everything, add it up, and focus on a single headline stock figure. That’s not useful.

The number that actually matters is wet gross profit by line, not total stock value. Here’s why:

• Spirits hide losses in over-pouring. A properly free-poured 25ml measure is often 32–35ml in practice. That’s not theft. It’s just how human hands work. A spreadsheet can’t catch this—you only catch it by weighing open bottles weekly and comparing against till data.
• Draught hides it in cellar temperature and line cleaning. A cask that’s kept at 14°C pours slower and wastes more than one at 12°C. Dirty lines waste beer. A spreadsheet counts the cask at full volume, but you’ve already lost 2–3% to heat and bad line maintenance.
• Stock “theft” is usually measurement error and forgotten wastage. A crate of glasses breaks. A guest sends back a pint. Someone forgets to ring a till void. The spreadsheet shows a variance, but you never logged the waste, so you assume it’s theft.

When you set up a Google Sheets inventory system, structure it around these three metrics for each line: till sales, physical count, and logged wastage—then calculate the variance between them. That variance tells you where your actual problem is.

For example: If spirits variance is high but wastage is logged correctly and the till reconciles, then you have a pouring control problem. If draught variance is high and cellar temperature logs show inconsistency, you have a cellar management problem. A spreadsheet that only shows “stock missing: £247” tells you nothing.

Why Weekly Line Checks Beat Monthly Spreadsheets

A monthly stocktake is too slow. By the time you count, you’re four weeks away from knowing why the variance happened. A staff member left three weeks ago—was that when things started going wrong? You’ll never know.

A weekly line check (not a full stocktake—just a check) gives you immediate visibility. If Thursday’s variance is 1.8%, you know something went wrong this week. You can ask about spillages. You can check the temperature log. You can watch your pour sizes. You can fix it immediately.

This is why StockTap pub stock app works better than a spreadsheet at scale: it logs the line check every week without you having to remember, and it flags anomalies in real time. But even with Google Sheets, the principle is the same. Weekly discipline beats quarterly guesswork.

A proper weekly line check takes 45 minutes. A quarterly stocktake takes 4–5 hours and tells you less because the data is stale. Do the maths.

When Google Sheets Stops Working

Google Sheets works fine for one person running a small pub alone. The moment you bring in another staff member or a manager, it breaks down:

• Nobody owns the count. If two people can edit the spreadsheet, you never know who entered what. Disputes happen. Numbers get “adjusted” without explanation.
• You can’t enforce the routine. You can tell a staff member to do the line check on Thursday, but there’s no alarm. No record of when it was actually done. It slips to Friday. Then it skips a week. Then you realise you haven’t done one in a month.
• You lose the audit trail. If your accountant asks “why did stock variance jump in week 3?”, a spreadsheet can’t answer. An app with timestamped entries can.
• The data gets corrupted. Someone’s phone auto-saves a half-finished edit. Someone else opens the same file and overwrites it. You’re never sure which version is current.

If you’re running a pub alone, Google Sheets is defensible. If you have staff, it’s a liability.

Moving Beyond the Spreadsheet

Google Sheets can work for bar inventory, but it requires discipline that most pub operators don’t maintain. If you’re finding yourself skipping weeks, forgetting to reconcile, or uncertain about your variance, it’s not a Sheets problem—it’s a process problem that a spreadsheet won’t solve.

What actually fixes the problem is a system that:

• Logs the line check on a fixed schedule (not whenever you remember)
• Reconciles against till data automatically the same day
• Flags high-variance lines immediately (so you can investigate rather than guess)
• Keeps an audit trail (so you know who counted what and when)
• Provides a single source of truth for all staff

SmartPubTools built StockTap pub stock app specifically because spreadsheets were costing pub operators money they didn’t have to lose. It’s £97 once—no subscription, no monthly fees. But honestly, if you’re disciplined enough to run a weekly check, weigh bottles, dip casks, log wastage the same day, and reconcile against till, Google Sheets will work for you.

The real question isn’t whether Sheets is good enough. The real question is: Will you actually do the work? If the answer is no, a better tool won’t save you. If the answer is yes, then Sheets is fine—but an app saves you from having to remember to do it.