How to Count Wine Inventory in Your Bar (2026)

Last updated: 26 June 2026

Most bar managers count their stock wrong—and they don’t even know it. They tick bottles off a list, assume the EPOS is accurate, and miss the fact that a 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 a year. The difference between a messy count and a disciplined one isn’t theory—it’s real money back in your pocket within weeks. This is how to count wine inventory in your bar properly, and why it matters more than most landlords realise.

If you’re running a pub or bar and your wine stock feels like a black hole, you’re not alone. Most operators I speak to are either guessing at their numbers or running counts that take hours and still don’t add up. The problem isn’t complexity—it’s that nobody’s taught you the system that actually works. You need to know exactly what you have, where it is, and why it matters for your P&L. This guide walks you through the method I use in my own pub, with the specific steps and the reasoning behind each one.

Why Wine Inventory Counts Matter

The most effective way to protect pub profit is a weekly stock count reconciled against till sales on the same day. This isn’t because your staff are stealing (most stock “theft” is actually measurement error and forgotten wastage). It’s because the longer you leave a count, the more variance you’ll find—and by then, you won’t know what caused it.

Here’s the reality: your EPOS tells you what sold. It doesn’t tell you whether you made money on it. That gap between what left the till and what left the cellar is where most pubs lose control. When I first took over my pub, I was running stock on a tangle of spreadsheets and still losing track of partial kegs and spirit measures. Within a fortnight of building a simple count routine around a dipstick and a set of scales, my weekly variance went from guesswork to a number I could trust. That number then told me exactly where the leaks were.

A proper count isn’t punishment. It’s intelligence. It tells you if your draught lines are weeping, if your staff are over-pouring spirits (a free-poured 25ml is often 32–35ml), or if someone forgot to log a wastage bottle. That’s information you can act on immediately, not a mystery you chase three weeks later.

What You’re Actually Counting

Most operators count “stock”—a vague catch-all. That’s useless. You need to count categories separately because they hide losses in different ways.

Spirits (Optics, Bottles, Open Measures)

This is where over-pouring happens fastest. A free-poured spirit will lose 7–10ml per serve against the optic standard. Over 40 serves a week, that’s half a bottle gone to nothing. You need to weigh open spirit bottles to the nearest 10ml. A basic digital scales (£15–20) is essential. Record the weight, then calculate the remaining liquid volume using a simple conversion: subtract the empty bottle weight and divide by the density of spirits (approximately 0.95g/ml).

Sealed spirit bottles are straightforward—count them by hand and cross-check against purchase invoices.

Draught (Kegs, Pins, Cask)

Draught losses hide in temperature, line cleaning, and poor cellar maintenance. A warm cask pours flat and gasses off faster. Dirty lines waste 2–3 pints per clean. You need a dipstick (or a basic measuring rule) to measure the remaining liquid depth in every keg and cask, every single week. Record the depth to the nearest centimetre and convert to remaining volume using the keg size (your supplier should provide a conversion table). Partial kegs are where most operators give up—don’t. Measure them the same way.

Wine and Cocktail Bottles

Count sealed bottles by hand. For open wine bottles (by the glass), measure the remaining liquid to the nearest 50ml and record it. Wine oxidises faster than spirits, so an open bottle more than a week old should be checked for spoilage before you count it as stock—or marked as wastage.

The Step-by-Step Count Method

Reconciling inventory against till data on the same day catches discrepancies before they compound into hidden stock loss.

Step 1: Choose Your Day and Time

Count on the same day every week—Wednesday or Thursday is typical, after the weekend rush and before the weekend buildup. Do it at opening time, before service, so you’re counting a static position. Announce it to staff the night before so nobody’s buying random stock an hour before you count.

Step 2: Gather Your Kit

• Digital scales (for open spirits)
• Dipstick or measuring rule (for kegs and casks)
• Notebook or—better—a stock app like StockTap pub stock app
• Conversion tables for keg volumes (ask your supplier)
• Your purchase invoices for the week

Step 3: Count Spirits Section by Section

Go through your spirits in order. For each bottle:

• If sealed, count it as one unit.
• If open, weigh it on the scales. Write down the weight. Do this consistently—always weigh on the same surface, always zero the scales between bottles.
• Record the spirit name, bottle size, and weight (or count) in your notebook or app.

Do this fast. Don’t second-guess yourself. If a bottle feels half-full, weigh it. That’s your data.

Step 4: Count Draught

Go to the cellar. For each keg, cask, or pin:

• Identify the product (lager, bitter, stout, etc.).
• Use your dipstick to measure the depth of liquid remaining in millimetres or centimetres.
• Write down the measurement and the keg size (18L, 20L, 9L, etc.).
• Convert the depth to remaining volume using your conversion chart, or calculate it roughly if you know the keg dimensions.

Check cellar temperature while you’re there. If it’s above 55°F (13°C), you’re losing product to gassing and spoilage—fix that.

Step 5: Count Wine and Other Categories

Sealed bottles by hand. Open bottles by measuring remaining volume. Cocktail mixes, cordials, and juices by similar logic—measure, don’t guess.

Step 6: Log Everything the Same Day

Don’t defer this. Enter your count into a spreadsheet, an app, or SmartPubTools inventory module on the same day. Data entered three days later is data you’ll forget how to interpret.

How to Reconcile Against Your Till

The number that actually matters is wet gross profit by line, not a single headline stock figure. This is the step that separates landlords who know their numbers from landlords who hope their numbers are okay.

Pull Your Till Data for the Counting Period

Get your EPOS report for the period since your last count (typically one week). You need to know:

• Total revenue by product line (spirits, lager, bitter, wine, etc.)
• Volume of each product sold (or a close estimate if your EPOS doesn’t split it out)
• Staff complimentary pours or voids (these are real losses and must be logged)

Calculate Expected Stock Depletion

Subtract what you sold (by EPOS) from what you started with (from last week’s count). This is your “theoretical usage.” Compare it to what you actually found this week. The variance is your loss or gain.

Example:

• Started with: 20 bottles of Pinot Grigio
• Bought during week: 8 bottles
• EPOS shows sold: 22 bottles (or equivalent)
• You counted: 5 bottles remaining
• Theoretical remaining: 20 + 8 − 22 = 6 bottles
• Actual remaining: 5 bottles
• Variance: −1 bottle (a loss)

A variance of 0–2% is acceptable (spillage, evaporation, rounding error). Anything above 3% on a regular line is a problem. It means over-pouring, forgotten wastage, or (rarely) theft.

Track Variance by Line, Not by Headline

Don’t obsess over a single stock figure. Track variance by product. If spirits are consistently tight and draught is loose, you know the problem is in the cellar or the lines, not the till. If a specific spirit is leaking 5% a week and others are 1%, you’ve found the answer: over-pouring on that line, or a sticky optic.

Common Mistakes That Hide Losses

Guessing the Depth of Draught Kegs

Most operators eyeball a keg and say “about three-quarters full.” You’re probably out by 10–20%. Use a dipstick or a measuring rule. It takes 30 seconds and removes the guesswork.

Not Weighing Open Spirits

If you don’t weigh them, you’re counting a 25ml over-pour as a sale. That’s a loss of 7ml per serve disguised as profit. Weigh them. It’s the single fastest way to catch over-pouring.

Forgetting to Log Staff Training Pours or Wastage

A staff member breaks a bottle. A draught line bursts and loses five pints. Nobody logs it because it’s not a sale and it’s embarrassing. Then your stock count shows a loss and you blame the till. Log wastage in real time. It takes 10 seconds and it solves half of your variance problems.

Counting Without Knowing What You Bought

If you don’t have your purchase invoices to hand during the count, you’ll miss incoming stock. Don’t guess. Have your invoices from the week ready before you start.

Counting Too Late After Opening

Count at opening, before service. If you count at close, you’re adding all of that night’s potential pour errors into the mix. You’ll never know if the loss came from today or last week.

Making It a Weekly Habit

The hardest part isn’t the counting. It’s keeping it consistent. One week you’ll count, the next you’ll skip it because you’re busy. Then you’ll skip two more weeks. Then you’ll abandon it entirely. I’ve seen it happen to better operators than me.

Here’s what works: block 45 minutes on your calendar every Wednesday at 7 a.m. Put it in your phone. Tell your deputy manager they’re running opening that day without you—you’re in the cellar. Make it a non-negotiable routine, like closing the till or ordering stock. After three weeks, it becomes automatic. After two months, you’ll see the money it saves you, and you’ll never skip it again.

You’ll also spot patterns. Your lager is tight and consistent. Your bitter is creeping up by 1% each week. Your spirits over-pour on Friday nights. That’s the intelligence that lets you act—retrain staff, fix equipment, or adjust your pricing. You can’t act on what you don’t measure.

The moment most pubs move from a messy spreadsheet to a disciplined count, they claw back 1–2 gross profit points within a couple of months. That’s not luck. That’s what happens when you stop losing money to unmeasured waste.