Humans have been counting, calculating, and charting numbers for as long as we’ve lived.
In the early days, we counted on our fingers. We eventually progressed to using small pebbles, and then to groups of sticks and twigs — until we finally invented the abacus. At the time, the abacus was a revolutionary invention that saved time and effort when doing math.
The abacus is far from being a cutting-edge math tool. Today, most of us walk around with a smartphone — the most mobile and powerful calculator the world has known.
If you’re still using an Excel or Google spreadsheet to keep track of your liquor store’s inventory, you might as well be using an abacus. You’re making things a lot more laborious than they need to be.
There are better ways to manage your liquor store inventory that can save you time, effort, and resources. Using a POS system like Bottle POS helps with both efficiency and accuracy, so you can ensure you order the right amount of product every time.
That’s the problem with using a manual spreadsheet to keep track of your wine inventory. Even the best-of-the-best spreadsheet wizards make mistakes from time to time.
What if there was a way to keep track of your wine inventory with no mistakes?
What if you could do it in less time and be able to track the most important metrics in your business. The ones that will help you become more profitable?
By the end of this article, you’ll learn which metrics to track, and how to track them without using a manual wine inventory spreadsheet powered by Excel or Google.
Pitfalls of Creating Your Own Wine Inventory Spreadsheet
With a homemade spreadsheet, you need to know what to track and how to track it. If you’ve never created or managed a complex spreadsheet before, this can be an incredibly difficult and daunting task.
Creating the spreadsheet is only half the battle. Once the sheet is created, you must manually keep track of every bottle coming in and going out of your store.
When you consider the sheer volume of wine bottles entering or exiting your store on a regular basis, the margin of error gets higher and higher. Manually tracking your inventory results in numerous hours counting, tracking, and inputting inventory into your complex spreadsheet.
Imagine a world where these hours were spent on tasks geared toward the growth of your store. Your employees could focus their time and attention on customer service, seasonal or promotional campaigns, or improving your store experience.
While creating a homemade spreadsheet might seem like a good temporary solution, it can very quickly create obstacles that get in the way of your business’ success.
Vital Information You Need to Have at Your Fingertips
The Vital Information You Need to Have at Your Fingertips
Having visibility into stock levels and product information is key to the success of your liquor store. Important product details include:
- Producer
- Varietal
- Vintage
- Vineyard
- Country
- Region
- Sub-Region
- Tasting notes
Getting real-time stock level data is necessary in order to make informed purchasing and reordering decisions. It helps you serve your customers better by giving them the information they need to make purchase decisions, and lets you know what stock availability to expect when they come in store.
Considering the hundreds of bottles of wine you likely have in your store, inputting and managing this information manually could take ages.
Using Lagging and Leading Metrics to Your Advantage
Keeping track of both lagging and leading metrics can help you make informed business decisions and develop strategies designed to help your store grow.
Lagging metrics are metrics related to things in the past, or that have already happened, such as sales, overhead, and profit margins.
Leading metrics are metrics that can help you look ahead and make better future decisions for your business. This can include top and bottom-selling products, highest and lowest profit margin items, as well as seasonal top performers.
Using an innovative liquor store POS system can help you track these metrics in real time. You have instant access to key numbers that help you optimize your store's revenue, so you can spot sales trends and avoid buying products that don’t sell.
How to Save Time When Tracking Inventory
With a manual spreadsheet, you could be spending hours inputting new items into your system when they arrive at the store. With a smart POS system, you can simply scan the invoice as it arrives and everything gets automatically populated into your system. Just review and approve.
This quick and easy way of managing inventory prevents costly mistakes. You won’t have to pour over your spreadsheet looking for false reporting or inaccurate numbers.
Your liquor store’s operations and revenue are determined by product in versus product out. Investing in a business tool that can help you best manage your inventory will benefit you greatly in the short and long-term.
The Right POS System > Wine Inventory Spreadsheet
The Right POS System > Wine Inventory Spreadsheet
The right POS system not only gives you all the information you need to make recommendations and serve your customers better, it helps you make informed decisions about what to order for your store in the coming months.
If you aren’t interested in becoming a spreadsheet wizard, but still want to track your inventory and sales with precision, we encourage you to schedule a demo with one of our Bottle POS experts.
In the demo, our team will walk you through the key metrics you can track, and offer some tips on how you can get the most out of your sales and inventory reporting.
The Bottle POS platform is designed to be easy to use and navigate, and has powerful features that can truly optimize your store’s efficiency. It can make your life easier by saving you time that can be spent on tasks and strategies to help your business grow.
