Free weekly bar review tool: sales, contribution and stock in one tool
By Jack Hawkins · Updated
Build a weekly bar review in your browser: compare current and prior sales, spend per head, ingredient gross margin, stock variance, item contribution and hourly staffing. Enter a sales summary, cost inputs and the relevant detail, then calculate a review you can read immediately on this page. No spreadsheet download or signup is needed.
Begin with matched trading periods
Enter current and prior period revenue using the same gross or net basis and VAT rate. Choose periods with comparable open days and explain holidays, events, closures or changed opening hours. The tool does not infer an appropriate comparison merely because two numbers are labelled weekly.
Current and prior covers and units let it calculate spend per head and drinks per head. If covers are unknown, enter zero and the ratio is shown as not defined rather than inventing guests. A transaction count is not automatically a cover count: one guest can pay twice, while one bill can cover a group.
Add stock and cost inputs
Opening stock value plus received stock value minus closing value gives actual usage cost for the period. Enter recipe-derived expected usage and logged explained depletion separately. The unexplained difference is actual usage less those two inputs. Keep transfer and comp handling consistent so a movement is not explained twice.
Add loaded labour and other operating costs for the same period. The resulting operating surplus is based only on costs supplied; it is not a complete accounting net profit if financing, tax or other costs are omitted. The inventory tool helps build a per-product reconciliation before using its costed totals here.
The review blocks
| Block | What appears | Input that makes it meaningful |
|---|---|---|
| Trade | Net revenue, comparison change, spend per head, drinks per head | Matched revenue, covers and units |
| Money | Ingredient gross margin, labour ratio, entered-cost surplus | Actual usage and period operating costs |
| Stock | Unexplained variance in pounds and percentage | Recipe usage and explained depletion |
| Menu | Item contribution, leader and lowest listed return | Realised item sales, units and recipe cost |
| Hours | Sales and loaded labour by day/hour | Consistent net sales and actual paid staff-hours |
| Actions | Decisions with owner and review date | A next step that someone can carry out |
The result is a structured tool, not a claim that a POS export contains every necessary input. Sales records do not supply physical closing stock or a current recipe cost by themselves. Missing context should remain visible rather than being replaced with a zero that makes the report look complete.
Build the item-contribution table
For each listed item, enter units sold, realised total item revenue for the period and recipe cost per serve. The sales column follows the selected VAT basis. Contribution is net item sales minus recipe cost times units; contribution per serve divides that result by units where the denominator is positive.
The tool ranks listed items by total contribution and shows the strongest and weakest listed result. You can enter the full menu or a selected subset. If item net sales do not reconcile to overall net revenue, the output flags that the table may be partial; do not call a top-items sample the whole menu.
Compare the hourly trade shape with labour
Enter a day or hour label, net sales, paid staff-hours and loaded labour cost. Unlike the period-revenue field, hourly sales are explicitly net. Three staff working one hour create three staff-hours, not one; including setup and closing consistently matters.
The hourly output shows sales, staff-hours, labour pounds and sales per paid hour. It helps identify a shoulder with unused coverage or a busy period worth investigating, but does not prove an exact number of lost orders. Compare service quality after changing the rota rather than treating the largest sales-per-hour result as an automatic staffing optimum.
Review leakage with clear denominators
Enter gross discount value and gross sales before discounts so the discount percentage has a stated basis. Enter weekend net revenue on the same period as total net revenue; the tool rejects a weekend amount above that total. Avoid comparing a gross discount percentage with a net-revenue labour percentage as if the bases were identical.
Choose your own variance investigation trigger. The tool highlights when the absolute unexplained variance percentage exceeds it, then suggests checking counts, receipts, recipes and logged depletion. The trigger is an operating policy, not proof of loss cause or an industry benchmark.
A simple illustrative review
Suppose gross sales are £12,000 at 20% VAT, giving £10,000 net. Opening stock of £3,000 plus receipts of £2,000 less closing stock of £2,400 gives £2,600 usage. Ingredient gross profit is £7,400 and ingredient margin 74%.
With expected recipe cost £2,400 and explained depletion £100, unexplained variance is £100, or approximately 4.17% of expected cost. Loaded labour £3,000 and entered overheads £2,500 leave £1,900 before any omitted costs. At 1,000 covers, net spend per head is £10. These figures illustrate the bridge; they are not typical-venue claims.
Finish with decisions, not another dashboard
Use the actions table to record a next check, owner and date. For a variance discrepancy, the action may be recounting a product and reconciling a delivery. For a weak menu item, it may be checking availability and testing a placement change. A good review distinguishes a known result from a hypothesis to investigate.
A thirty-minute meeting can be a useful routine once the data is prepared, but preparation time depends on your records. The tool does not promise a fully automated Monday email. Better Bartender's invitation-only venue pilot explores permitted reporting connections separately; the free resource here is ready to use with your own inputs.
Keep and share the right snapshot
Calculate to see the review underneath the inputs, including the summary ratios, item contribution, hourly staffing and decisions you entered. Editing a field clears the previous result so an older table is not presented as current. Calculate again after each correction and inspect the resulting warnings before acting on the review.
Add or remove item, hourly and action rows directly on this page. Use summary operating figures rather than personal guest details: names and payment information are unnecessary for this review. Keep the original sales and stock records in your normal business records for checking the inputs. Refreshing restores the example, so keep the page open while comparing figures.
FAQ
Does the tool replace a weekly spreadsheet? It provides the calculations and review structure described here directly on the page. Enter the relevant sales, stock, recipe and labour figures, then calculate and inspect the summary, detailed tables and warnings without maintaining spreadsheet formulas or moving files between applications.
Can I paste a POS export and get every metric? Not without mapping its columns and providing the other inputs. Recipe costs, stock counts, covers and labour come from separate records where the POS does not contain them.
Can I compare two periods? Yes, for revenue, covers and units, with corresponding per-head results. Keep the periods comparable; the tool cannot remove event or opening-hour differences automatically.
Is the output final profit? It is an operating-surplus calculation based on supplied costs, plus ingredient and stock measures. Check which costs are included before comparing it with accounting net profit.
Method and assumptions
Worked figures are illustrative. Revenue, quantities and costs must cover the same dates, with consistent tax and guest definitions. The metrics glossary and reporting method explain the underlying terms.
Last reviewed 19 October 2026.