Orderly Review: Why Weekly Stock Checks Matter
Last updated: 26 June 2026
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Most pubs lose money without ever knowing where it went. The missing stock isn’t always theft — it’s measurement error, forgotten wastage, over-pouring, and line waste that nobody’s tracking. An orderly review is a structured, repeatable weekly stock count that turns vague suspicion into hard numbers you can act on. What separates the pubs that claw back 1–2 gross profit points from those that don’t is discipline: the same day, the same method, every week. This article explains exactly why orderly reviews matter, how to run one, and what to do with the numbers once you have them.
Key Takeaways
- An orderly review is a disciplined weekly stock count using consistent method and timing to catch shrinkage before it becomes a hidden profit leak.
- A 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 annually, and most losses are measurement error or wastage, not theft.
- The metric that matters is wet gross profit by line, not a single headline stock figure — spirits hide losses in over-pouring, draught in line waste and temperature problems.
- Running an orderly review takes 30–40 minutes per week if you use the right equipment and method, and the data quality improvement pays for itself within two months.
What Is an Orderly Review?
An orderly review is a systematic, repeatable weekly count of your open stock — spirits, draught, soft lines, and cask — taken on the same day at the same time, using the same measurement method every single week. It’s not an annual stocktake. It’s not a casual “does it look about right?” glance at the back bar. It’s a disciplined procedure that takes 30–40 minutes, happens every Tuesday morning (or whichever day you choose), and produces a variance number you can trust.
The core of an orderly review is simplicity: dip every cask and partial keg with a dipstick, weigh every open spirit bottle on a set of scales, count your soft bottles against your till record, and record the numbers on a simple sheet or form. Same method, same day, every week. No exceptions.
Most pubs I know run a version of this already — but they do it inconsistently, change the method halfway through, or skip weeks. That’s why they get variance numbers that bounce between minus 2% one week and plus 8% the next. Variance noise is useless. Orderly, repeatable variance is actionable.
Why Orderly Reviews Matter
A 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 a year. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a car payment. And most pubs that move from a messy spreadsheet to a disciplined orderly review claw back 1–2 gross profit points within a couple of months — not because they suddenly stop theft, but because they find measurement errors and wastage they didn’t know existed.
The real reasons stock goes missing are boring. Spirits hide losses in over-pouring — a free-poured 25ml measure is often 32–35ml. Draught hides it in poor cellar temperature, bad line cleaning, and keg connector waste. Soft lines disappear in damaged bottles and spillage. Most stock ‘theft’ is actually measurement error and forgotten wastage. Until you measure it weekly, you have no idea which line is the problem.
Here’s the operator insight nobody tells you: the number that actually matters is wet gross profit by line, not a single headline stock figure. Your total stock variance might be 0.8%, which sounds acceptable. But if your Guinness is running at minus 5% and your Stella at plus 2%, you’ve got a real problem with your Guinness system — and you’ll never spot it if you’re only looking at the headline number.
When I was running my own pub on a tangle of spreadsheets, I had no idea which lines were leaking. I built a simple count routine around a dipstick and a set of scales, and within a fortnight my weekly variance went from complete guesswork to a number I could trust. Within two months, I’d identified a keg connector that was slowly weeping beer, a sous-vide water bath being topped up with Robinsons squash instead of Robinsons sold, and a spirit pourer that was badly calibrated. Total recovery: about £120 a month. That pays for a lot of discipline.
An orderly review also gives you a weekly early warning system. If your variance suddenly spikes from a normal 0.5% to 3%, something changed that week — either a staff member issue, an equipment failure, or a measurement error in your count itself. You find out in week two, not month three.
How to Run an Orderly Review
Equipment You Need (Seriously, Get This Right)
You need three things. First, a dipstick — a simple graduated wooden or plastic stick that slides into a cask and tells you the depth of liquid remaining. Cost: £8–£15. Second, a set of scales that weigh to the nearest 10g — digital kitchen scales work fine, cost £12–£25. Third, a count sheet or form — either a printed template or a simple spreadsheet. If you want structured guidance, the StockTap pub stock app builds the form and stores the data for you, but a pencil and paper works perfectly well if you’re disciplined about it.
Do you really need special equipment? Yes. Here’s why. A guess is not a measurement. A dipstick gives you depth to the nearest half-inch (roughly 0.5 litres in a standard pint cask). Scales give you spirit bottle weight to the nearest 10g, which on a 1-litre bottle is accurate to about 12ml. Both are orders of magnitude more reliable than eyeballing or tilting a bottle.
The Procedure: Step by Step
1. Choose your day and time. Pick a quiet morning — Tuesday or Wednesday before service. Same day, every week. This controls for the variables in your till data and makes trends easier to spot.
2. Count draught. For each cask, read the dipstick at the bottom of the cask, record the depth, look up the depth–to–volume table, and write down the litres remaining. Record the date, brand, and connector condition. If a connector is leaking or wet, note it — that’s not stock loss, it’s equipment failure.
3. Weigh open spirits. Every bottle being actively poured from gets weighed. Record the bottle name, date opened, current weight, and the theoretical full weight. Subtract to get consumption. Check the weight against the number of measures dispensed via your till that week. If you’ve sold 40 measures of Jameson (at 25ml each), the bottle should have lost roughly 1,000ml (or 1kg of liquid — spirits vary slightly in density). If it’s lost 1,500ml, something’s wrong: either over-pouring, spillage, or a miscounted till.
4. Count soft lines. Most pubs use till counts for soft drink — your EPOS tells you how many bottles were sold. Cross-check against physical count of partial bottles. This is quick.
5. Record everything on the same form, same column order, every week. This is where discipline matters. Inconsistent recording makes variance analysis impossible.
What to Do With the Data
Once you have your count, reconcile it against your till data the same day. For draught: if the till shows 280 pints of Guinness sold and your dip shows 18 litres consumed (288 pints), you’re within margin of error. For spirits: if the till shows 40 measures of vodka sold and the weight loss shows 1,050ml, you’re tight. Record the variance for that line, calculate it as a percentage of till sales, and note it.
Your weekly report should show variance by line, in percentage terms. Anything between minus 2% and plus 1% is normal noise. Anything outside that range needs investigation.
Common Mistakes That Ruin Data
I’ve seen orderly reviews fail because of five routine mistakes.
- Inconsistent timing: Counting Thursday one week and Monday the next week breaks the relationship between till data and physical count. Pick a day and stick to it.
- Changing the method: One week you dip at the bottom of the cask, next week at the connector. One week you weigh spirits on digital scales, next week you use a measuring jug. Each method switch introduces error. Standardise and hold it.
- Including finished stock in the variance: If you drank the last 50ml of a bottle in a staff tasting, that’s not stock loss, it’s a known deduction. Record it separately and exclude it from variance calculation.
- Not recording the date opened for spirits. If you weigh a bottle of Jäger and it shows a big loss, you can’t tell if it’s a measurement error or if the bottle’s been open for six weeks. Date opened is essential context.
- Forgetting to account for deliveries between counts: If you take a stock count on Tuesday and receive a draught delivery on Thursday, your next Tuesday count will look like you’ve consumed less beer than you actually have. Always record delivery dates and volumes on your count sheet.
Reconciling to Till Data
The orderly review only works if you compare it against till data on the same day you count. Your till tells you what was sold. Your physical count tells you what was actually consumed (including spillage, wastage, and over-pouring). The gap between the two is your variance.
Pull a till report for the exact week covered by your stock count. For each line, check:
- Draught: till pints sold versus physical litres consumed (convert using 1 litre = 1.76 pints)
- Spirits: till measures sold versus weight loss in the bottle (1 measure = roughly 25ml or 25g)
- Soft: till bottles sold versus physical count
Record the variance percentage for each line. Over time, you’ll see patterns. A consistent minus 1.5% on Guinness suggests a systemic problem — maybe line temperature, maybe a slow leak in the connector, maybe your Guinness pourer isn’t calibrated. A one-off plus 8% on vodka might be a weighing error. A consistent minus 2% on Jäger is probably a slightly over-generous measure — which might be a brand promise and okay with you, or it might be something to correct in staff training.
The key is variance by line drives action, not a single headline number. If your total wet variance is 0.3%, that’s excellent. But if one line is minus 4%, you’re masking a real problem.
When You Say “I Don’t Have Time”
I hear this every month. “I’m running six staff, we’re doing covers until 11 p.m., and you want me to add a stocktake?” Fair point. But here’s the reality: a properly run orderly review takes 30–40 minutes, once a week, on a quiet morning. That’s less than 3 hours a month. The cost of not doing it is 1% stock loss = £3,000–£5,000 a year. The maths is brutal.
If you genuinely don’t have a quiet 40 minutes on a Tuesday morning, the answer isn’t to skip the review. It’s to make sure someone on your team owns it — a deputy manager or senior bartender. Train them once, give them the form, and it becomes routine. They count draught, weigh spirits, record the data. You spot-check and reconcile to till. That’s 15 minutes of your time.
If you’re worried about data security, spreadsheets are not the answer. Paper gets lost, spreadsheets get overwritten, and nobody has a clear audit trail. SmartPubTools users get a dated, timestamped record every week with the data stored safely. But the real insurance against chaos is consistency. Whatever method you use — form, spreadsheet, or app — use it the same way every week.
What About the Brewery Stocktaker?
Your brewery sends a stocktaker every quarter or half-year. They count everything, and their job is to make sure the pubco’s keg rental and product liability are accurate. They’re not there to catch your measurement errors or help you run your business. Their count is often several days after your last sale, which introduces drift. Their method may not be the same as yours. Their variance tolerance is usually much wider than yours needs to be.
The brewery stocktaker is a compliance checkpoint. Your orderly review is a management tool. They’re not the same thing. Run both.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I run an orderly review?
Weekly, on the same day. Weekly review gives you a tight feedback loop — you spot problems within 7–10 days and can take action before variance compounds. Monthly reviews are too slow; quarterly reviews are useless for spotting line-specific problems. Weekly also normalises the habit and makes it easy for staff to follow.
What’s a normal stock variance percentage?
Between minus 1% and plus 0.5% is acceptable for most pubs. Anything outside that range needs investigation. Major breweries expect minus 0.5% to plus 0.5% — they assume a small loss from spillage and wastage. Anything significantly worse suggests measurement error, over-pouring, or a real loss that needs addressing.
Can I do an orderly review without scales and a dipstick?
Not accurately. Eyeballing draught depth or pouring spirits into a measuring jug introduces margin of error that makes variance data unreliable. Scales cost £15–£25 and a dipstick costs £8–£15. That’s one hour of labour recovered within a month, so the tools pay for themselves.
Why does my Guinness always show a loss when other draught doesn’t?
Guinness is nitrogen-heavy and more sensitive to temperature and line condition. If your cellar is too warm (above 50°F / 10°C), the gas expands slightly and you lose head space. If your Guinness line is poorly cleaned or has a slow leak at the connector, you’ll see consistent minus 2 to 3% variance. Check cellar temperature first, then inspect connectors. Most Guinness variance is temperature-related, not theft.
Is a spreadsheet safe for storing stock records?
A spreadsheet is better than nothing, but it’s not secure. Spreadsheets get overwritten, accidentally deleted, or modified without a clear audit trail. For a small pub, that’s often acceptable — the data is only a week old anyway, so if you lose it, you lose one week. But if you’re running multiple sites or want a clean record for accountancy, a dated, timestamped system is more professional and less risky.
Running a manual orderly review every week is straightforward, but tracking it consistently across months is where most pubs stumble.
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