Bar and restaurant owners must be constantly vigilant in protecting their businesses from leaking profits.  Modern bars employ one or more methods to protect their investments:

• Portion and pour controls employing various spouts and dispensers.  These dispensers range from low-cost bottle spouts to sophisticated dispensing systems
• Inventory controls which compare actual usage to theoretical usage based on sales.  These inventory control systems must be part of, or must automatically interface to a computerized point-of-sale system.
• Cash controls using various computerized point-of-sale systems
• Observation using video recording equipment or “mystery shoppers”.  

The above methods have both advantages and disadvantages.  Portion controls maintain consistent portions are dispensed.  Customers however, are somewhat resistant to measured portions because they naturally assume they are being served drinks with less liquor.  Portion-measuring devices do not address any potential problems with sales and collection of cash.  

Inventory controls are somewhat effective in identifying problems in the bar.  The inventory control-method is highly labor-intensive and to be effective, must interface with a computerized point-of-sale computer.  The computer is needed to be able to report the detail of each and every item sold. The inventory-control method is only able to detect discrepancies for the entire period of time between inventory counts.  This method is not able to discover exactly when or by whom the offending transactions happened.

Cash controls can be effective if certain procedures are enforced.  The bartender must be prevented from preparing anything without a beverage preparation ticket printed by the point-of-sale system.  Each bar customer must have a tab in front of him so that the sales can be audited.  The manager should be able to display current tabs and be the only one able to discount or void items.  The manager should by the only one able to comp and enter breakage, spills, and other transactions such as walkouts and owner discounts.

Observation by managers, owners and “mystery shoppers is probably the most effective control method.  This method is also the most time-consuming.  The managers and owners cannot possibly watch each transaction as it happens.  Video recording equipment can be helpful, but the cameras can’t see everything – especially the amount the bartender actually rings up.  The videos must be viewed by someone with a trained eye to spot any offending activity.    

The In*Sight Commander combines all the above control methods in one complete system.  It is a powerful computerized point-of-sale system and digital video recording system combined into one computer.  This allows anyone to view everything the bartender prepares alongside everything he rings up – all on one screen in real time.  The video can be viewed in real time or recorded for later viewing .  The activity can even be viewed remotely from another location.  The owner can view the video at normal speed or at up to eight times faster than normal speed.  The owner or manger can review the video themselves or have trained observers audit the video and prepare clips that contain only the suspicious video segments which show activity that needs further explanation.  

Brian McMillan is Director of Product Development of In Sight Commander System, Inc.  a software development company specializing in restaurants and video surveillance systems.  He can be reached at (714) 940-9800 or http://www.insightcommander.com/