Your first stock take.
One shelf at a time.

1. Set up your inventory items

1. Create your business account. Once your application is accepted, log in with the username and password you chose.
2. Select the correct month before entering numbers.
3. Add an item: name, category, bottle or can, unit cost, case size and target stock. For bottles, enter the full contents measurement and its unit. You can edit items later.

Categories are Beer, Wine, Spirits, Bottled Water, and NA Cans and Bottles. Choose the right category so each group gets its own COGS percentage.

Unit cost means the purchase cost of one full bottle or one can, not its selling price or the whole case price. A $48 case of 24 cans costs $2 per can. Use one currency throughout; changing the currency label does not convert amounts.

2. Count what is actually on the shelf

One full bottle = 1 point. Count sealed bottles, then enter the measured remainder of each open bottle. Stocktails converts the remainder into a fraction of a full bottle.

Example: 3 full bottles plus 7 oz left in a bottle with 35 oz of full contents = 3 + 7 ÷ 35 = 3.20 points. This is a measurement example; use your item's real full measurement.

If weighing a bottle including the glass, use the empty bottle weight so it can be subtracted. Use matching units for the empty bottle, full contents and remainder. Fluid ounces measure volume; weight ounces and grams measure weight.

Cans count individually: 2 cases of 24 plus 5 loose cans = 53 cans. Full water bottles also count as whole bottles.

On your phone, use Walk-around mode, choose Opening or Ending, search or filter the category, then count and tap Save & next. Wait for confirmation that it saved online.

Enter 0 when you checked and there is none. Leave an item uncounted when you have not checked it. Skipping an item is not a zero count. Counting requires Wi-Fi or mobile data.

3. Enter your monthly numbers

Discrepancy: if you enter usage, expected ending = opening + received − usage − spillage. Actual ending minus expected ending is the variance: negative means short, positive means extra.

Without independent usage, counts can calculate depletion but cannot tell you how much was sold versus lost. Check your counts and deliveries when ending exceeds available stock. Incomplete or invalid counts need fixing before relying on the totals.

4. Try a COGS example

Purchases and COGS cover different things. Purchases are what arrived this month. COGS is the cost of stock that left inventory, including older stock, spillage and unexplained loss.

This practice calculator does not save or change your inventory.

Category COGS % = category COGS ÷ category sales × 100. Beer, Wine, Spirits, Bottled Water, and NA Cans and Bottles each have their own percentage. The overall percentage is total COGS divided by total sales—not an average of the category percentages. Missing or zero sales cannot produce a meaningful percentage.

5. Finish the month and export

1. Complete all opening and ending counts, received orders and spillage.
2. Enter each category's monthly sales and review any discrepancies or invalid quantities.
3. Check the save status says your inventory is saved online before leaving.
4. Export Excel for the formatted Monthly Summary and Inventory sheets, including COGS percentage columns. Editing the exported file does not update the website.
5. Start the next month to carry ending stock into its opening count. Changing the month selector only switches your view; it does not move a month's entries.

Use JSON backup for a full backup. Importing a backup replaces the shared inventory for that business, so review it before confirming.

Quick answers