When you think of bartenders, it might bring up images of Piper Perabo doing body shots in Coyote Ugly (2000), Tom Cruise flipping wine bottles in Cocktail (1988) or those classic bar scenes in Casablanca (1942). The romanticization of bartenders may lead many to believe that it’s the easiest (and sexiest) job in the world.
It may very well be a sexy occupation but it’s far from easy. A seasoned bartender in the middle of a busy bar with thirsty clients is like a swan swimming on a lake. Looking serene and composed but their little feet are paddling like crazy to stay afloat. Standing for almost half the day, taking orders left and right, keeping the tab on all payments and doing small talk.
The amount of multitasking is enough to fill a bartender’s plate. A bar or pub owner should think of ways on how to help their bartenders cope with the workload. One initiative is to use a Point of Sale (POS) system like the one you can find on Joinposter website.
Open, track and close customer tabs
Using this system, a bartender can record and track all orders quickly. This will lessen the burden of manually scribbling orders and allow the bartender to focus on mixing Manhattans and sloshing beers.
What’s more difficult than catching a spinning Martini bottle? How about splitting the tab of a 10-man group, with all preferring card payments? A POS allows you to easily split the payments and integration to a card system allows for credit or debit payments.
How about tips? This can also be split and shared even if the customer was served between shifts. Every monetary item can be tracked by the bartender and more importantly by the pub owner via their own POS access account.
Manage Inventory
A pub’s inventory can be seen as two parts. The liquor and other paraphernalia inventory at the bar and the inventory at the stockroom. The former is the responsibility of the bartender while the latter should be monitored by the pub owner.
A POS system can alert bartenders on which supply is running low. Nothing breaks the momentum of an engaged bartender mixing a Bloody Mary than finding out he is out of rum. It takes away time from the bartender who will run to the storage room to restock and it takes away time from customers who will wait longer to get served. Pub owners can also monitor if stocks are running low so they can order before running out.
A detailed inventory can also deter theft or overstocking slow-moving items. With so much activity, it’s easy to miss the expiry dates of perishable goods. A good POS system can monitor these goods and can help you decide how many to keep in stock to avoid spoilage. The real-time monitoring of modern POS systems is crucial to any business but it’s critical to pubs and restaurants which rely on accurate inventory to keep the business running.
Analyze sales data to stay profitable
Big data analysis seems to be associated with large corporate businesses but in truth, the principle can apply to any business. A pub can benefit from data that can be harnessed by a well-designed POS system. You can determine which product sell the most to stock effectively or even tweak your pricing to get more out of your best sellers.
Speaking of tweaking pricing, a pub owner should learn how to calculate “Pour Cost”. It has a straight forward formula, you simply add all the cost of a product and divide it by the amount sold. For simplicity, let’s take beer as an example. If a pub sold $10,000 worth of beer for $50,000, the pour cost will be $10,000 divided by $50,000. This will equate to 0.20%, meaning that each $1 sold, the pub will use up $0.20 of inventory. So if a beer sells for $5, the pub makes $4 of revenue. Easy enough, right?
But what about mixed drinks that have multiple ingredients with differing amounts. You can also factor in the bartender’s wage, the pub’s building rental and even those cutesy little umbrellas to get an accurate pour cost. The lower the pour cost the better, so a pub owner can now price their products to arrive at the most profitable margins.
POS systems can prove invaluable when computing for pour cost. You can input all the item costs, add required tax and apply the resulting price. You can even be fancy and give discounts to VIPs and good patrons or create a loyalty point system to reward your most avid drinkers.
Summing Up
The success of a pub is tied closely on the quality of service that it gives. A bartender giving overpriced but improperly mixed drinks will hasten your pub’s demise. But even with best personnel and products, you will be better off getting the right tools to aid your business
A POS solution could provide the missing piece to unlock your pub’s business potential. With a bevy of solution providers in the market, choosing the right one may seem like a “needle in a haystack” scenario. But be patient, look for a POS solution that’s easy to implement and even easier to use. The purpose of the POS is to make your bartender’s work easier, learning the ropes of a complicated system will just add to the problem.
The right POS will generate instant benefit and in the long run can help you retain staff, gain more customers, increase sales and streamline your process. You can then have that well-deserved drink as a toast to your success.
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