How often should you stocktake a pub?

Last updated: 26 June 2026

Most pubs are haemorrhaging stock without realising it because they’re counting inventory at the wrong intervals. A 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 a year — and that loss is invisible if you’re only checking stock once a month or once a quarter. The real answer is simple: you need to count your lines every single week, not because you enjoy spreadsheets, but because the shrinkage happens daily. If you’re waiting 30 days to see what’s gone wrong, you’ve already lost a month’s margin and you’ll never pinpoint when it started. This guide tells you exactly how often to stocktake, why frequency matters more than most licensees think, and what method actually works in practice.

The honest answer: weekly line checks, not monthly stocktakes

The most effective way to control pub stock loss is a disciplined weekly count of draught lines, partial kegs, and open spirits, reconciled against till data the same day. Not monthly. Not quarterly. Weekly. I know that sounds like a grind, but here’s the thing: once you’ve got a routine, it takes about 20–30 minutes per week — far less than the cost of ignoring it.

I spent years doing what most licensees do — running stock on a tangle of spreadsheets and a vague sense that things were probably fine. I’d do a big stocktake every four weeks, spend a morning on it, find a variance I couldn’t explain, and move on. The variance was usually “about right” so I’d shrug it off. Then I built a simple count routine around a dipstick and a set of scales, and the weekly variance went from guesswork to a number I could trust within a fortnight. Within two months, I’d clawed back 1–2 GP points just by knowing where the leaks actually were.

The reason weekly works is simple: losses happen every day. Spirits hide it in over-pouring (a free-poured 25ml is often 32–35ml). Draught hides it in poor cellar temperature, bad line cleaning waste, and the occasional burst connection. Most stock “theft” is actually measurement error and forgotten wastage. If you’re only checking once a month, you’re trying to explain a 30-day mystery. If you’re checking weekly, you’re chasing a seven-day story — much easier to spot what changed.

Why most pubs get the frequency wrong

The brewery stocktaker comes once a month (or sometimes less), and that creates a false sense of security. Most licensees think: “The brewery stocktaker does it, so I don’t need to worry.” That’s the biggest mistake. The brewery stocktaker is there to reconcile their liability, not to protect your margin. If there’s a variance, they’ve already invoiced you for it. That count is too late to be useful.

More importantly, the brewery count doesn’t catch the daily noise. It doesn’t tell you whether your draught lines are cold enough. It doesn’t flag that one spirit bottle is being poured two sizes bigger than it should be. It doesn’t show you which bartender’s till is drifting. StockTap pub stock app and similar tools exist precisely because the brewery stocktake happens too late in the cycle to matter to your actual profit.

The second reason licensees get frequency wrong is spreadsheet inertia. If you’ve got a monthly count locked into your routine, adding a weekly count feels like doubling your workload. It’s not — if you use a structured method, it’s a different kind of count. Monthly big stocktakes are invasive, time-consuming, and catch things too late. Weekly line checks are surgical, fast, and actionable. Most pubs that move from a messy spreadsheet to a disciplined weekly count find the new way is actually less disruptive than the old one.

What a proper weekly count looks like

A weekly line check is not a full stocktake. You’re not recounting every bottle in the cellar every week. You’re measuring the stock that moves, then comparing the movement to what the till says sold.

Here’s the structure:

• Draught lines: Dip every cask and partial keg using a simple wooden dipstick. Write down the depth. Compare it to last week’s depth. Calculate the volume that left the keg. Check the till for the number of pints sold. The gap is your variance.
• Spirits: Weigh every open bottle using basic kitchen scales (£10). A standard bottle of vodka, gin, or rum should weigh a known amount when full. If it’s lighter, spirits have left the bottle. Compare to till sales. Flagged over-pours show up instantly.
• Partial kegs and boxes: Note the physical state. If a keg was three-quarters full last week and quarter-full this week, that’s a known consumption. If it’s empty and the till only shows two-thirds of the pints, you’ve got a problem to investigate.
• Wastage log: Keep a running note of line cleans, spoilage, spillage, and staff drinks. These aren’t theft — they’re legitimate cost — but you need to account for them so they don’t look like shrinkage.

The number that actually matters is wet GP by line, not a single headline stock figure. If your draught beer variance is +2% and your spirits variance is –3%, those are two different problems. The +2% on beer might mean you’re underselling (good for margin, bad for volume). The –3% on spirits is either over-pouring, spill, or measurement error. You handle each one differently. A headline variance of “stock is ±0.5% overall” hides both stories.

Timing matters too. Do your count at the same time each week — say, Tuesday morning before the lunch shift, or Sunday evening before you open. The routine makes it habitual, and you’ll spot deviations from pattern more easily.

The equipment you actually need

You do not need an expensive stocktaking system. You need three things:

• A wooden or metal dipstick (£3–5 from a homebrew supply shop)
• A set of basic kitchen scales, accurate to 10 grams (£10–15)
• A simple log — either a printed template or a structured spreadsheet where you record the same information every week

That’s genuinely it. Some licensees ask: “Do I really need special equipment?” The answer is no — you need measurement precision, not gadgetry. The dipstick and scales give you that. Everything else is discipline and record-keeping.

Some pubs use apps or dedicated cellar management tools. There’s nothing wrong with that — SmartPubTools has a cellar tracking feature that lets you log dips and weights into your phone and see variances flag automatically. But the core principle is the same: measure the same way every week, compare to till, spot the deviation.

How to reconcile stock against your till

This is where the real insight comes from. Your till tells you what sold. Your count tells you what left the cellar. If they don’t match, you’ve found the leak.

Here’s the method:

1. Count your stock on, say, Tuesday morning. Note the reading for every draught line (keg depth), every spirit bottle (weight), and every partial item.
2. Get your till breakdown for the week of stocktakes (Monday to Sunday). Most EPOS systems let you filter by product category.
3. For draught, calculate: last week’s reading minus this week’s reading = the depth that left the line. Use your keg’s dimensions to convert that into volume. Look at the till. How many pints of that beer did you sell? If the till says 200 pints and your keg depth shows 180 pints left, you’ve got an 8% variance — over-pouring, temperature loss, or line purge that wasn’t logged.
4. For spirits, calculate: last week’s weight minus this week’s weight = grams of spirit that left the bottle. At standard density, roughly 1 gram per 1ml. A 750ml bottle of 40% ABV spirit weighs about 750 grams. If it lost 200 grams this week, roughly 200ml of spirit left. How many 25ml measures is that? About 8 measures. What did the till ring for that spirit? If it’s fewer than 8 measures, you know over-pouring is happening.
5. Document the variance. If it’s small (+/–2%), it’s noise — temperature, measurement error, a line clean you forgot to log. If it’s large (–5% or more), investigate. Is it theft? Poor pouring? Bad temperature in the cellar?

The key is doing this the same day you count, while the details are fresh. Most licensees count on Monday, then don’t reconcile against till until Thursday. By then, you’ve forgotten what happened and you can’t ask staff about specifics. Same-day reconciliation makes investigation instant and accurate.

Common excuses — and why they don’t hold up

Excuse 1: “I don’t have time to stocktake every week”

A proper weekly line check takes 20–30 minutes. If you’re telling me you don’t have 30 minutes a week to protect £3,000–£5,000 a year in margin, you’ve got a management problem bigger than stocktaking. Most licensees spend more time complaining about stock variance than they would spend preventing it.

Excuse 2: “My spreadsheet works fine”

Your spreadsheet works if you’re logging it religiously and reconciling against till data the same week. Most licensees aren’t. They’re logging stock counts, but they’re not comparing them to till sales, so they’re not actually catching anything. A spreadsheet is a tool — it doesn’t create discipline. The discipline is the weekly routine. The spreadsheet (or an app like StockTap) just records it.

Excuse 3: “Won’t the brewery stocktaker just do it?”

The brewery stocktaker counts your physical stock against their delivery records. They’re settling an account, not running your business. By the time they’ve found a variance, you’ve already been invoiced for it. You need your own count in between to catch trends before they become numbers you have to pay for.

Excuse 4: “Is an app safer than a spreadsheet for my records?”

An app with cloud backup is safer than a spreadsheet on your laptop, yes. If your laptop dies, your spreadsheet is gone. A cloud-based system keeps a history, lets you access it from any device (including your phone at the bar), and backs up automatically. But “safer” doesn’t mean you should avoid it — it means you should choose the right tool. Most pubs are running spreadsheets on machines that have never been backed up.

Excuse 5: “Stock variance is normal, isn’t it?”

Yes, small variance is normal. ±2% is acceptable shrinkage due to temperature, spillage, line waste, and measurement error. But if you’re seeing –3% or –4% every week and you’re shrugging it off, you’re accepting a £150–£200 loss per week that you could prevent. That’s £7,800–£10,400 a year. Even a tiny improvement is worth the routine.