Liquor Control Systems: Boosting Your Bar's Efficiency and Profitability

What is a Liquor Control System?

Liquor control systems are tools designed to monitor and measure everything that gets poured in your bar. Despite there being numerous styles and varying capabilities of these devices, the bottom line is that they are all made with the purpose to increase your profitability by reducing waste and eliminating theft. Apart from the already considerable amount of profits to be gained from these alone, the list of benefits that liquor control systems have to offer goes far beyond that.

The Cost of Overpours

Whether intentionally or not, overpours are a problem that can be found in nearly every bar. No matter how skilled your bartenders are, at the end of the day, they are still human. There will always be events that can break even the most seasoned bartenders’ focus. Even just a slip in focus can make that 1 oz drink a 1 and a ½ oz drink pretty quick and the odds of anybody noticing are few and far between.

Now a simple mistake of ½ an oz may not seem that bad at first, but it doesn’t take long for those small mistakes to significantly eat into your profits.

Say you’ve got four bartenders on a busy Friday night, lines are starting to form around the bar, with people shaking their empty glasses signaling for another drink. The bartenders are making drinks to order, and people are ordering! Precision and accuracy have no place behind the bar at this moment and drinks are being poured freely.

In this scenario, if each bartender adds just 0.25 oz to every other drink, the cost adds up surprisingly quickly.

Assuming 0.25 oz of liquor costs about $0.20, which may seem insignificant, if each bartender pours over 100 drinks, it amounts to 50 extra fluid ounces being poured. This translates to $40 in wasted liquor, and even more in lost potential revenue!

Now for the 50 oz of liquor that were wasted in the example above, if you could have sold each for $5, this could have generated an additional $250! Meaning you didn’t just lose out on the $40 the liquor cost you but also the $210 of profit it could have generated. This loss equates to thousands of dollars of missed profit potential at the end of the year!

Over-pouring liquor also directly affects your cost of goods sold and overall profit margins which you can learn more about in our article The Real Cost of Goods Sold.

Accountability and Staff Engagement

Your staff should be your first line of defense in the constant battle to maintain accurate stock levels of your bar, without having inventory going unaccounted for or being wasted. All staff should be made aware of the extraneous costs that are incurred when overpours are occurring and stock is being wasted. Now, as tempting as it may seem to just add a “little extra” when pouring your favorite regular’s drink, that little goes a long way when it's made into a habit. It is crucial to keep your staff informed as to the costs these seemingly “harmless mistakes” have to the business.

Liquor control systems will help keep your staff accountable. With the ability to monitor everything that is poured, staff won’t just be handing out free beers or pouring heavy-handed drinks for friends at the bar. Not only will a liquor control system help keep all of your staff accountable but it also holds each of them to an equal standard. This helps contribute to creating an open and honest working environment for your staff, and a healthy working environment for your staff means savings for you as this often leads to a lower turnover rate. Happy staff also leads to better service that will keep your customers coming back for more.

Enhancing Accuracy and Efficiency

Apart from great customer service and the many other required skills of a bartender, their accuracy and efficiency is crucial to maintaining your profitability. When your bar is packed and bustling, your bartenders need to be fast to keep up with the zealous demand. Now, when your bartenders are in a hurry, maintaining the high level of accuracy expected may not always be their number one priority.

Liquor control systems not only give you the accuracy you need and ensure that every drink is poured with the exact amount of liquor called for, they also greatly increase the efficiency of your bar. Making it easier for your bartenders to keep up with your customers' increasing demand, by allowing them to make more drinks in less time with precise measurements. Keeping your customers happy with the perfect drink every time, and saving you money by virtually eliminating overpours and wasted stock.

Ensuring Consistency in your Drinks

A key quality most customers look for in a bar, that is also often the most overlooked, is consistency. Consistency is something that will keep customers coming back over and over again, and for good reason. Everybody wants to enjoy a great drink, and when they order it again, they expect it to be just as good as the first. This means keeping drinks consistent! If most people had to decide between getting a great drink every single time or getting a phenomenal drink on occasion, most would choose the great drink.

Liquor control systems accurately measure and control the amount of liquor that is being poured, ensuring that every drink is perfectly poured every time!

With Benefits like Reducing Waste, Theft, as well as Enhancing Consistency and Customer Satisfaction, What’s the Catch?

Not only does a liquor control system save you money by eliminating waste and increase your profits by pouring the perfect drink every time, it creates an overall better workflow for your staff and ensures an enjoyable experience for every customer that comes through your door.

What could possibly be the downside?

Upfront Cost: Now a liquor control system can, of course, save you thousands of dollars in the long run. However, they can also cost you a pretty penny upfront. Much like many things in the industry, liquor control systems are an investment. They may cost a few thousand dollars upfront, but in the long run they could save you thousands more.

Maintenance: Liquor control systems do require maintenance, they need to be properly cleaned on a regular basis which can be quite the task or, depending on the system, may even require you to hire a professional. It is also important to keep in mind that liquor control systems are still technology, in a bar with liquid passing through them, being spilled on them, and being used hundreds of times a day. Although built to withstand their daily wear and tear, there will be times when they will need to be repaired or replaced, and this can often lead to a high bill added to your list of expenses.

Staff Resistance: Another issue you may find is that your staff simply won’t like using the system. Especially common among long-time bartenders, they may feel it takes away their flair and will look dull to customers that come in wanting to watch their bartender make their drinks with grand gestures and flamboyant pouring technique. This in turn may take away from the customer experience if that is what your bar is known for.

An additional complaint is that the system makes it easy for anybody to be a bartender. If all they have to do is push a button to get a perfect drink every time, then all the hard work is done for them. This of course is not entirely true, as any great bartender knows, it takes numerous skills besides being able to simply pour a good drink to be a truly great bartender.

Maximizing your Liquor Control System with Integrated Inventory Software

While a liquor control system offers significant benefits on its own, pairing it with an integrated inventory system can provide even deeper insights into your bar's operations. When you have an inventory system that integrates with both your liquor control system and your POS, you get an incredibly powerful combination that allows you to track live pour data vs. sales in real-time, helping you identify variances, and provides detailed reports on discrepancies, their causes, and actionable solutions, giving you a clear picture of how much profit you are losing and where improvements can be made.

Systems like Ideal Pour seamlessly integrate with your liquor control system, tracking every pour and comparing it with your sales data on a live, fully customizable dashboard. Meaning you get all the information you actually need when you need it.

Additionally, when using an inventory system that tracks pour data, you streamline your inventory processes by reducing the time your staff spends on manually counting and eliminating the guesswork of counting what's left in open bottles.

Together, liquor control and inventory systems not only give you the tools to prevent lost profits but also provide actionable data to maximize your bar's financial performance.

Finding the Right System for Your Bar

There are countless liquor control systems available, but finding the right one for your unique bar can make all the difference in your bar’s profitability. By carefully evaluating your options, you can choose a system that aligns with your specific needs –whether that's helping you reduce waste, improving efficiency, or maintaining consistency across every pour– all while maintaining the integrity of your bar and your budget.

While there may be upfront costs, the long-term benefits—like increased profitability, reduced theft, and enhanced customer satisfaction—make it a smart investment. With the right system in place, your bar can run more smoothly, save money, and ultimately boost your bottom line. Take the time to explore the options available and find the liquor control system that best fits your bar's unique needs.