Last updated: 26 June 2026
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Provi is a popular platform for ordering drinks and food from multiple wholesalers through a single dashboard, but it is not a stocktaking or cellar management system—and that distinction matters when you’re trying to control your wet goods losses. Most pub licensees confuse ordering convenience with stock visibility, and that gap costs money every week.
I get asked about Provi regularly. Licensees see it as the answer to their supply chain headaches, but when I dig into whether it’s helping them spot losses or track variance, the answer is almost always no. This review is written to answer that specific question: should you use Provi for stock control in your pub, and what should you actually be using instead.
Key Takeaways
- Provi is an ordering aggregator, not a stock control or cellar management tool.
- It does not track stock variance, measure cask levels, weigh spirit bottles, or reconcile against till data—the core drivers of loss detection.
- A 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 a year, and Provi alone will not catch it.
- You need a separate stocktaking routine and a tool built for cellar control to identify where actual losses happen.
What is Provi and what does it actually do?
Provi is an online ordering platform that lets you place orders with multiple drinks and food wholesalers through a single interface. Instead of logging into separate accounts with Booker, Sysco, or your local cash-and-carry, you search across suppliers, compare prices, and order everything from one dashboard.
It solves a genuine problem: the friction of managing multiple supplier logins and reconciling invoices from different vendors. If you’re a pub licensee tired of juggling three different ordering systems, Provi removes that friction.
The platform also shows you your order history, tracks pricing trends, and can alert you when prices on key lines shift. For procurement and budgeting, that visibility is useful. But procurement—knowing what you ordered—is completely different from stock control, which is about knowing what you actually have and where it went.
Can Provi help you control stock and spot losses?
No. And I need to be direct about this because many licensees assume it can.
Provi tells you what you ordered. It does not tell you:
- How much stock you physically have in the cellar right now
- How much draught beer is left in a cask (you need a dipstick)
- How much spirit is left in an open bottle (you need scales)
- Whether a keg is partially empty or full
- Where the difference between what you ordered and what you sold actually went
The number that actually matters in a pub is wet GP by line, not a single headline stock figure. Spirits hide losses in over-pouring (a free-poured 25ml is often 32–35ml). Draught hides it in poor cellar temperature, bad line cleaning waste, and slow stock rotation. And most stock ‘theft’ is actually measurement error and forgotten wastage. Provi will not help you find any of that.
Real stock control requires you to dip every cask and partial keg, weigh open spirit bottles, and reconcile against till data the same day. That is not what Provi does. When I was running my own pub on a tangle of spreadsheets, I still couldn’t see where my losses were hiding. It was only when I built a simple count routine around a dipstick and a set of scales that my weekly variance went from guesswork to a number I could trust within a fortnight.
Pricing and wholesale commitments
Provi itself is free to use. The platform makes money by taking a margin on orders placed through it, which means you pay slightly more than you might if you ordered direct from a wholesaler.
However, many Provi users find themselves locked into minimum spending commitments or tied to specific wholesalers to get competitive pricing on the platform. That is not Provi’s fault directly, but it is a structural cost of using the service. You are paying for convenience in procurement, not for a discount.
If you are serious about controlling costs, this matters. You need to know both your procurement prices and your actual stock losses. Provi helps with one. You need something else for the other.
The real gaps in Provi for pub licensees
Provi is a B2B ordering tool. It was not built for pub cellar management, and that shows when you try to use it for stock control.
No cellar tracking or variance reporting
Provi does not have a cellar module. You cannot log your weekly dips, record partial kegs, or generate a variance report that tells you whether you are losing stock. This is the single biggest gap for a pub operator trying to understand their margins.
No integration with point-of-sale data
To spot a loss, you need to compare what you physically have against what your EPOS says you sold. Provi does not connect to your till data, so you cannot run this reconciliation on the platform. You have to do it manually in a spreadsheet—which defeats the purpose of using a tool in the first place.
No line-by-line GP analysis
A single ‘stock loss’ number is useless. You need to know which lines are losing money. Is it the premium lager? The spirits? The ciders? Provi gives you order history; it does not give you loss attribution by product.
No cellar environment logging
Temperature, line cleaning schedules, cask rotation, and pressure all affect how much draught beer you actually pour versus what you lose to waste. Provi does not track any of this. A cask stored at 18°C instead of 12°C will give you 15–20% more waste, and Provi will not flag it.
What you actually need for cellar control
If Provi is purely an ordering tool, what should you actually be using to control your wet goods losses?
You need three things working together:
1. A disciplined weekly count routine
Measure everything. Dip every cask and partial keg. Weigh every open spirit bottle. Log the results the same day. This takes about 40 minutes a week. Most pubs that move from a messy spreadsheet to a disciplined count claw back 1–2 gross profit points within a couple of months. That is £1,500–£3,000 a year in a typical pub.
2. A tool built for cellar data capture and variance reporting
You need something that lets you log your dips, your weights, your till data, and your ordering data in one place so you can see where the gaps are. A spreadsheet works if you discipline yourself, but the StockTap pub stock app was built specifically for this. It has a cellar module, integrates with till data, and shows you variance by line.
3. A weekly reconciliation practice
Every Monday morning (or whatever your stocktake day is), you should be able to answer these questions:
- What did I physically count?
- What did my till say I sold?
- Where is the difference?
- Which lines are losing the most?
If you cannot answer those four questions in 10 minutes, your stock control routine is not working.
Provi cannot help you answer any of them. You need a separate tool. SmartPubTools built StockTap specifically because we kept seeing licensees with beautiful procurement systems and zero visibility into their actual losses.
The verdict: Provi, ordering, and real stock management
Provi is a good tool for what it does. If you are tired of juggling multiple supplier logins and want to see price trends across wholesalers, it is worth considering. But do not buy it thinking it will help you control stock or spot losses. It will not.
The mistake most licensees make is treating procurement and stock control as the same problem. They are not. You can have the best ordering system in the world and still lose £3,000–£5,000 a year to unmeasured waste, over-pouring, and poor cellar practice.
Use Provi for ordering if it saves you time and money on procurement. But keep your eye on the actual problem: measuring what you have, logging what you sold, and reconciling the gap every single week. That is where the money is. That is where losses hide. And that is where your attention needs to be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Provi free to use?
Yes, Provi itself is free. The platform makes money by taking a margin on orders placed through it, so you typically pay slightly more per item than you would ordering directly from a wholesaler. There are no platform fees, but the convenience comes at a small cost per case.
Can Provi help me find stock losses?
No. Provi tracks orders, not physical stock or variance. To find losses, you need to measure stock physically (dips, scales, weights), reconcile against till data, and analyse variance by line. Provi does none of this. You need a separate cellar management tool for that.
What should I use instead of Provi for stock control?
You need a disciplined weekly count routine using basic equipment (dipstick, scales) plus a tool that captures cellar data and compares it against till data. A spreadsheet works if you are disciplined; a purpose-built app like StockTap works better and shows variance by line automatically.
Does Provi connect to my EPOS system?
Not in a way that helps with stock control. Provi does not integrate with most pub EPOS systems to pull till data for variance reconciliation. You would need to manually export sales data and reconcile it yourself, which is why a dedicated cellar tool is more practical.
How much does a typical pub lose through unmeasured stock variance?
A 1% stock loss on wet sales costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 a year. Most of this is not theft; it is measurement error, over-pouring, and forgotten wastage. A proper weekly line check using a dipstick and scales catches it quickly, and most pubs claw back 1–2 gross profit points within a couple of months.
You now understand why Provi is for ordering, not for seeing where your stock losses actually are. The real question is: do you have a cellar control routine that measures the gap between what you ordered, what you physically have, and what your till says you sold?
Most pub licensees do not. That is why losses stay hidden. If you want to tighten your cellar control from this week, StockTap is built to make this easy: dip your casks, weigh your spirits, log the numbers, and the app shows you variance by line.
£97 once. No subscription. No monthly fees. Works on any device.
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