1954 Practical Bar Management by Eddie Clarke

BAR ACCOUNTANCY AND CONTROL

It is essential that a full record is maintained covering the revenue for each individual bar. It is not always possible to read this revenue from the Hotel Tabular or Business Done Book for a variety of reasons. For instance, a Cocktail Bar may serve certain liquor into a restaurant, the revenue for which would appear under the Restaurant Dispense Bar heading, or perhaps the Tabular Book may have no facility for recording Banquet Bar or Night Porters' Bar revenue separately from the Main Dispense. The compiling of revenue for bar returns may there fore be best achieved through a separate Analysis of Receipts Book maintained in the Control or Secretary's Office. Control of Cigarette Revenue Frequently in Cash Bars cigarettes are included as part of the general stock, requisitioning taking place in a similar manner as for liquor. In some establishments barmen are instructed to segregate cigarette sales. This is generally done on the basis of a fair guess and is normally useless. It is advantageousfrom all points of view that the hotel books should record an accurate dissection of liquor and cigarette trading. Apart from arriving at the consumption of cigarettes by stock taking either daily or periodically and dissecting cash records accordingly,the only way to ensure that accurate cigarette revenue appears in the Business Done dissection of a Cash Bar, is for the barmanto payfullretail cash atthetimeeachrequisitionis madeout. There are two methods by which this can be achieved ; 1. From Float The barman's float is increased by roughly the extent of a normal cigarette indent. As the barman pays for each consignment of cigarettes, it is thus necessary when checking floats to take into account the cigarettes in hand. 2. From Bar Revenue As each indent for cigarettes is made out, the barman pays in the retail value of these cigarettes from Bar Revenue. Depending on the size of the indent and Business Done it may be necessary, on occasions, for the transaction to be done over two days. At stocktaking dates it is necessary under this procedure to credit the balance of cigarettes in hand back into the Bar Revenue in order to obtain the proper Liquor Control over the bar. This procedure is simple in the extreme and fully satisfies the purpose required.

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