PLY inventory review: what it means for your pub

Last updated: 26 June 2026

Most pub licensees dread the words “inventory review” because they’re never quite sure what their stock actually is. You’ve been running the pub, the till rings, the customers drink — but when someone asks you to account for every bottle, every cask, and every measure in writing, the panic sets in. A PLY inventory review is exactly that moment: your pubco or brewery’s formal audit of your cellar, bar stock, and till records, and it’s non-negotiable. The difference between a licensee who sails through it and one who faces awkward questions comes down to one thing: whether you’ve been counting properly all along. This guide tells you what a PLY inventory review actually is, why it matters, and how to prepare so you’re never caught out.

What is a PLY inventory review?

A PLY inventory review is a formal stock audit conducted by your pubco or brewery — usually Marston’s, Fuller’s, Greene King, or whoever you’re tied to. It’s a physical count of everything in your cellar and behind the bar, matched against your till records and delivery notes. The auditor (or sometimes a team) will arrive unannounced or with a few days’ notice, depending on your contract. They’ll spend a few hours counting bottles, dipping casks, checking temperatures, and asking to see your records. The most effective way to pass an inventory review without stress is to run a proper count routine every week from the moment you open the pub.

It’s not just about spirits and draught. They’ll check your wine, your soft drinks, your kegs, your gas, your spirits in measure — everything that has a cost attached. They’ll reconcile what’s physically there against what your till says you’ve sold, what invoices say you’ve received, and what you say you’ve thrown away. If the numbers don’t line up, they’ll want to know why.

Why your pubco runs them

Your pubco isn’t trying to catch you out for the sake of it. They’re protecting their margins. Stock losses hide in three places: over-pouring (a free-poured 25ml spirit is often 32–35ml), cellar waste from poor temperature control and bad line cleaning, and measurement errors on open bottles. A typical pub losing just 1% of wet sales is quietly haemorrhaging £3,000–£5,000 a year. From the pubco’s perspective, that’s their revenue going missing. From yours, it’s profit that should be in your pocket but isn’t.

The review also protects you. If stock is going missing and you don’t have a documented count to show where it went, the pubco assumes it’s theft or negligence — both of which can damage your relationship with them or worse. If you have records showing you’ve been counting weekly and the variance is explainable, you’re in a much stronger position.

What they actually check

Here’s the practical bit. When the auditor arrives, expect them to do this:

• Cask and keg count: Every partial and full cask in the cellar gets dipped with a dipstick to measure the contents. No guessing. They note the type, size, and volume remaining.
• Spirit bottles: Every open bottle gets weighed. A 70cl bottle of spirits should weigh roughly 700g when full. If your 25ml pours are consistently over-heavy, they’ll notice.
• Till reconciliation: Your Z-readings for the period (usually the last month or quarter) are checked against what you say you’ve sold in stock terms.
• Delivery notes and invoices: They’ll ask to see proof of everything you’ve received from your supplier.
• Waste sheets: Broken bottles, spoiled product, line cleaning waste — anything you’ve written off needs to be documented with dates and quantities.
• Temperature logs: If you keep them, they’ll check cellar temps. Poor temperature control wastes product and affects taste.

If you’ve been using StockTap pub stock app, all this is already logged in a format they understand. If you’re on a spreadsheet, make sure it’s legible and complete.

How to prepare for a review

Preparation starts the moment your tenancy begins. You can’t fake a good inventory review — the numbers either add up or they don’t. But you can make the auditor’s job easy and your position defensible.

Get your paperwork in order now

Gather and organise:

• All delivery notes and invoices for the period under review (usually the last 12 months)
• Your waste sheets — every bin liner of product, every broken bottle, every line clean, documented with a date and quantity
• Till reconciliation reports or Z-readings for the period
• Any stock count records you’ve kept (weekly or monthly counts)
• Temperature logs if you’ve been keeping them

If any of these are missing, start immediately. The auditor will flag gaps, and gaps look like you’ve got something to hide.

Run a full physical count a week before

Don’t wait for the auditor to count everything. Do it yourself first. Get a mate or a staff member you trust, grab a clipboard (or open SmartPubTools), and count every cask, every bottle, every case. Write it down. This serves two purposes: it gives you a chance to spot any obvious issues before they see them, and it means when they do their count, your numbers will match because you’ve already done the hard work.

Make sure your cellar is clean and organised

This is small but it matters. If your cellar is a mess — kegs stacked haphazardly, bottles all over the place, no labels on anything — the auditor has a harder job and gets a worse impression. If it’s clean, properly racked, and labelled, it takes them less time and you look professional.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Not counting regularly

This is the biggest mistake. Licensees run their pub for months without a formal count, assuming it’ll be fine. Then the auditor arrives and suddenly they’re scrambling. Weekly stock counts are the only way to know whether you’re leaking product or losing money, because you can spot trends and fix them immediately. If your count last week showed a 2% variance and this week it’s 3%, something’s changed — a staff member pouring heavy, a line with a slow leak, or a temperature spike. You catch it and fix it. If you only count when the auditor shows up, you’ve had no chance to do anything about it.

Guessing at open bottles

A full spirit bottle is marked on the neck. As it empties, you’re pouring from it. The auditor will weigh it. If it’s 100g lighter than it should be after ten pours, that’s two extra measures you sold without charging for them. Weigh your open bottles every week. It takes five minutes and catches this immediately.

Not recording wastage properly

Line cleaning waste, broken bottles, split cases — these are legitimate losses but only if you’ve written them down. If the auditor’s count shows you’re missing a bottle of Bacardi and you can’t prove you threw it out or sold it, they’ll note it as loss. If you have a waste sheet saying “1 x Bacardi, broken, 3 June,” you’re fine. A pub licensee I know lost a tenancy over an unexplained variance of less than £200 because he couldn’t document it. Don’t let that be you.

Assuming the brewery stocktaker will sort it

Many licensees think the brewery’s own stocktaker will handle the count and it won’t affect them. Wrong. The brewery stocktaker is there to check that what they delivered to you is accounted for. If your numbers don’t match theirs, that’s your problem, not theirs. You need your own count routine independent of the brewery’s audits.

Staying audit-ready all year

The secret to passing a PLY inventory review without stress is not to treat it as an event. Treat weekly counting as part of your operating routine — the same way you count the till or check the stock rotation.

Here’s what a working routine looks like:

• Every week: Dip all casks and partial kegs. Weigh open spirits. Record the count in a consistent format. Reconcile against till data the same day.
• Every week: Log any wastage — dates, products, quantities, reasons (breakage, spoilage, cleaning, etc.).
• Every month: File away your delivery notes and check them against your stock movements.
• Every quarter: Sit down and look at your variances. Are they consistent? Are they explainable?

If you’re doing this, when the auditor arrives you’ll have 52 weeks of documented counts, reconciliation, and waste records. Your variance will be a known number backed up by data. You’ll pass the review in under an hour and the auditor will leave with a clean report.

I’ve seen licensees get through their first PLY review in 90 minutes because their records are tight. I’ve also seen licensees get flagged for further investigation because they have no paperwork at all. The difference isn’t luck — it’s discipline.