Managing - Controlling

As a sample of Controlling, given below, you will find Bar and cellar control in the more understandable traditional way. Nowadays, most companies have modern PC system, which makes controlling much easier and simpler. Controlling will have to be organised in other departments in a similar structure.

Bar control

An efficient system of control must operate between the wine waiters and the dispense bar staff in order that the correct drinks are served at the right table; that they are charged on the right bill and that a record is kept of all drinks issued from the dispense bar. At the same time, a system of control allows management to assess the sales of each bar over a financial period and see whether it is making a profit or loss.

The usual system of control is a duplicate check pad. The colour of the check pad may be pink or white but is generally pink. This acts as an aid to the cashier and the control and accounts department in differentiating quickly between food (white) and drink (pink) checks.

When the wine order is taken, it is written in duplicate. The wine waiter must remember to fill in the four items of information required one in each corner of the check. These are as follows:

1 Table no. or room no;
2 No. of covers;
3 Date
4 Signature

Abbreviations are allowed when writing the order as long as they are understood by the dispense bar staff and cashier. It should be remembered that when wines are being ordered the bin number is written down together with the number of bottles required. The bin number is an aid to the dispense barman and cellar man in finding, without delay, the wine required by a guest. Each wine in the wine list will have a in number printed against it. All drinks ordered should also have the price printed against them, and then at the base of the check the total amount of cash owing for the order give should be written and circled. This is an aid to the cashier who must check all prices before entering them on the bill.

On taking the order the wine waiter will hand the top copy to the dispense bar staff and the duplicate to the cashier. Alternatively the wine waiter may hand both copies to the dispense bar staff, who retains the top copy, puts the order and leaves the duplicate copy with the order. This enables the wine waiter to see which is his order when he comes to collect his drinks, and after serving them he hands the duplicate copy of his order to the cashier.

Goods ordered, received and issued from the cellar

When any alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks need to be purchased for an establishment, to keep up the level of stock, this will be done by the cellar man. The cellar man's order will be written in duplicate on an official order form. The top copy will be sent to the supplier and the duplicate remains in the order book for control purposes when the goods are delivered. In some instances, there may be three copies of the order sheet. If so, they are distributed as follows:

1 Top copy: supplier
2 Duplicate copy: control and accounts dept.
3 Third copy: remains in the order book

When the goods are delivered to an establishment, either a delivery note or an invoice will accompany them. Whichever document it may be the information contained on them will be the same, with one exception: invoices show the price of all goods delivered whereas delivery notes do not. The goods delivered must first be counted and checked against the delivery note to ensure that all the goods listed have been delivered. The cellar man may carry out an extra check by checking the delivery note against the copy of the order remaining in the order book. This is to make sure that the items ordered have been sent and in the correct quantities and that extra items have not been sent which were not listed on the order sheet, thereby incurring extra cost without immediately realising it. At this stage all information concerning the goods delivered will be entered in the necessary books for control purposes.

No drinks will be issued by the cellar man unless he receives an official requisition form, correctly filled in, dated and signed by a responsible person from the department concerned. The cellar man should have a list of such signatures and will not issue anything unless the appropriate person on his list signs the requisition sheet. In order to aid the cellar man all requisitions should be handed into him at a set time each day, when all issues will be made. In certain instances however, depending on the organisation of an establishment, it may be necessary to issue twice per day, once before opening time in the morning and again before opening time in the evening. All requisition sheets are written in duplicate. The top copy goes to the cellar for the items required to be issued, and the duplicate to remain in the requisition book for the bar man to check his drinks on receipt from the cellar.

Cellar control

In any catering establishment where a large percentage of the income received is through the sale of drink, a system of cellar control and costing must be put into operation. The system put into operation would depend entirely on the policy of each establishment. Some or all of the books listed below may be necessary depending upon the requirements of management:

1 Order book
2 Goods inward book
3 Cellar ledger
4 Bin cards
5 Goods returned book
6 Stock book
7 Departmental requisition book
8 Daily consumption sheets

The cellar is the focal point for the storage of alcoholic and non-alcoholic liquor in an establishment. All the service points for such liquor, such as the lounge, lounge bar, cocktail bar, saloon bar, buttery, dispense bars and floor service would draw their stock on a daily or weekly basis from the cellar, this being determined largely by the amount of storage space available, and the turnover of sales. All the bars within an establishment will hold a set stock of liquor, which is sufficient for a period of one day or one week. At the end of this period of time they requisition for the amount of drink consumed in that one day or week, thus bringing their total stock up to the set stock required. This is known as a 'par' stock that is bringing your stock up to a particular set level, which is determined by turnover.

In the cellar where bin cards are used then every time a wine is received or issued it will be entered on the appropriate bin card and the remaining total balance shown. Thus the bin cards should show at any given time the total amount of each particular wine held in stock. They will also show where applicable a maximum and minimum stock this being a guide to the cellar man when ordering and dependant on the storage space available.

In the dispense bar, as all drink is checked for before issue, a daily consumption sheet is completed each day after the service by copying down the sales shown on the top copy of the wine checks. The consumption sheet will list the complete stock held in the dispense bar.

Bin cards may also be completed for checking the wines. At the end of the week the consumption sheets may be totalled up, thereby showing the total sales for that period. These totals may then be transferred on to a bar stock book for costing purposes. Where drink consumed is not checked for in any way then either a daily or weekly stock is taken so that the amount to be requisitioned from the cellar may be noted. This then brings the bar stock back up to its required level, which is the 'par' stock. The daily or weekly consumption (sales) would then be costed and the cash total for sales arrived at would be related to the daily or weekly income. That is cash in the till. The following diagram may help to show very simply the basic steps in bar and cellar control.

Cellar man
Order form
Wholesale wine and spirit dealer
Cellar
Goods inwards book
Cellar ledger
Bin cards
Issues against requisition sheets
LOUNGE BAR - COCKTAIL BAR - SALOON - RESTAURANTS - DISPENSE BAR - FLOOR SERVICE
Bars all have their own set stocks
Which are made up daily or weekly by
Filing in the requisition sheet
Daily consumption sheets (Dispense Bar)
Bar stock book

Beverage control

It may be useful here to mention a few points concerning alcoholic beverage control. The system of beverage control is basically the same as for food. The sales mix is easier to determine than with a regular menu, as the number of bottles of spirit consumed compared to gallons of beer is readily available without a special effort being made to record items sold.

Stocktaking

It is essential that a physical alcoholic beverage stock be taken at least on a monthly basis, and more if it is felt necessary. To enable a result to be achieved records need to be kept.

Goods received book

All deliveries should be recorded in full detail. Each delivery entry should show basically, the following:

A Name and address of supplier
B Delivery note/invoice number
C Your order number
D List of items delivered
E Item price
F Quantity
G Unit
H Total price
I Date of delivery
J Discounts if applicable

You may also record here or in a separate 'returnable containers' book the amount and deposit cost of all containers such as keys, casks, and the number of CO2 cylinders delivered.

Ullage - allowance - off sales book

One must ensure that each sales point has a suitable book for recording the amount of beer wasted in cleaning the pipes, broken bottles, measures spilt, or anything that needs a credit.

Either in the same book or in a separate one record the number of bottles, whether beer or spirits, sold at off sales prices and the difference in price. This difference will be allowed against the gross profit.

A pre-determined amount should be allocated per member of staff, per day, times the number of working days in the week to give a weekly beverage allowance cost figure for staff.

Gross profit

Gross profit is determined by deducting the beverage cost from the sales. The proportion of beer to spirit consumed will sometimes help explain why a certain month's gross profit is low (a lot of beer sold) or high (more spirit have been sold).

The mark-up on spirits should give at least 60 per cent gross profit, whereas on beer it is difficult to realise 50 per cent gross profit. There are other reasons for a high or low gross profit. This is an area where the food and beverage manager needs to be forever vigilant as it is here that most can be done to upset one's forecasting, planning and profit margins, A number of points to look out for may be as follows.

A.) Under ringing and keeping the difference, by ringing perhaps .15 instead of 1.50, whereby the bar loses a £ 1. The cash register should be sited so that both the customer and management are able to check visually the amount rung up.

B.) Too many 'No Sales' on the till roll may give a clue to shortages. It is not always possible to prohibit the use of the 'No sale' key together. Therefore the till roll should be examined each time it is removed. Then excessive use of the 'No sale' key may be queried at the time. The till roll itself can be very revealing. It is sometimes found that there are a lot of very small sales recorded, or that the average sale is lower than usual, or lower with one operator than with another. Such indications should put you on your guard. The efficient manager will count the money first and then read the till rather than read the till first and then ask for the money, which is often done by the inexperienced manager. In busy bars it is good practice to collect most of the cash before the end of a session, leaving a temporary receipt in the drawer.

C.) Working with the drawer open, if the till is not set on 'closed drawer' giving change without ringing the amount up.

D.) Never let bar staff cash up as this may throw suspicion on everyone if there is cause for concern.

E.) All off sales should be kept apart from the bar where measures are sold, and a separate stock used. All off-sales should be entered into a separate book. The stock taker will need the difference between tot prices and off-sales prices.

F.) Lounge sales or sales at a table away from the bar may also be vulnerable. The till ticket provides one simple method of control. If each waiter or waitress is provided with a float and has to pay for drinks at the time of collecting then he or she can have a ticket to present to the customer. The customer then knows that the money has gone into the till, and this gives the customer confidence in the establishment. The other advantage is that, unless there is collusion, the bar staff will not overcharge the waiter or waitress or under ring the transaction. Even though this is a simple method of control, it is still open to abuse. Staff have been known to use the same chit twice, but only if they are able to get drinks without paying for them.

G.) The introduction of more recently developed electronic equipment may help to reveal that losses have taken place, but it will not in itself prevent them. Most of this electronic equipment is designed primarily to facilitate the analysis and recording of sales. Such equipment may, for example, provide automatic pricing for up to 32 items such as a half-pint and pint of beer, whisky, gin and tonic and so on, and thereby greatly reduce the likelihood of miscalculation and making under ringing easier to detect.

Transfer book

With multi-bar units, one must minimise the movement of stock between bars otherwise you will end up short. If this does happen then you must make sure a record is kept.

Cellar stock ledger

This is an essential part of beverage control and may be used as either an extension of the 'goods received book' or in place of the 'goods received book', and therefore showing movement of all stock into the establishment and issues out to the bars or dispensing points. All movement of stock 'in and out' of the cellar will be shown at cost price.

Bin cards

If bin cards are to be used ad they will show the physical stock each items held in the cellar. Therefore the movement of all sock 'in and out' of the cellar would be recorded on each appropriate bin card. The bin cards are often used to show what is termed the 'maximum stock' and 'minimum stock'.

The minimum stock determines your reordering level, leaving you sufficient stock in hand to carry you over until the new delivery arrives. The maximum stock tells you how much to reorder and is determined by such consideration as storage space available, turnover of a particular item, and to some extent by the amount of cash available within your budget.

Requisition

Each unit dispensing alcohol beverages should use some form of requisition to draw items from the cellar. These requisitions may be controlled either by colour or serial number, and are normally in duplicate or triplicate. The copies are sent as follows:

A Top copy to the cellar
B Duplicate to the beverage control department
C Triplicate would be used by each unit to check its goods received from the cellar

Information listed on the requisition would be:

A Name of dispensing unit
B Date
C List of items required
D Quantity and unit of each item required
E Signature of authorised person to both order and receive the goods

The purpose of the requisition is to control the movement of items from the cellar and into the dispensing unit and to avoid too much stock being taken at one time and overstocking the bar. The level of stock held in the bar is known as 'par' stock. The amount ordered on your requisition, each day, should bring your stock back up to 'par'. The amount to reorder is determined simply by taking account of the following equation - opening stock plus additions (requisition) less closing stock equals consumption (the amount to reorder, each item to the nearest whole unit).

Overage - shortage

An analysis of alcoholic beverage sales and stock held allows you to gain two important pieces of information. Firstly the gross profit and secondly the overage or shortage of the estimated monetary revenue and stock in hand. The gross profit is determined by finding the difference between revenue and the cost of the alcoholic beverage consumed.

To determine the overage or shortage it is necessary to estimate how much money you should have taken during a given period of time, and based on the consumption at selling price. The consumption must be priced out bottle-by-bottle, keg-by-keg.

Glass measures

A bar can serve any measure it likes as long as it tells the customers what it is doing by displaying the statutory sign, which is limited to gin, rum, whisky and vodka. All draught beer must be served in a government stamped glass of either 25 or 50 centilitres (half-pint or pint). It is illegal to serve in an unstamped glass unless the customer is aware of what you are doing, or the pump has a pre-set measuring device duly sealed by the customs and exercise. The following measures are usually the amounts served.

Gin, rum, whisky and vodka -60ml
Brandy -60ml
Sherry and port -30ml
Liqueurs -60ml
Vermouths -30ml
Wine - 6 glasses from a 75 centilitre (26 2/3 fluid ounce) bottle

Mark-up on wine

Two methods may be used.

Either:

A The addition of a fixed mark-up percentage onto the cost price of each wine or

B The addition of a fixed cash margin to all wines, which makes the more expensive, wines better value for money

Bar measures (old British system)

1/6 gill or a 6 out = 0.83 fluid ounces or 32 tots per 26 2/3 fluid ounces spirit bot

1/5 of gill or a 5 out = 1.00 fluid ounces or 26 tots per 26 2/3 fluid ounces spirit bot
1/3 of gill or a 3 out = 1.66 fluid ounces or 16 tots per 26 2/3 fluid ounces spirit bot
4 gills = 1 pint
1 pint = 20 fluid ounces
1.76 pints = 1 litre or 35 fluid ounces
1 pin = 4 ½ gallons = 36 pints
1 firkin = 9 gallons = 72 pints
1 kilderkin = 18 gallons = 144 pints
1 barrel = 36 gallons = 288 pints