This gets you from a fresh account to your first closed week. Setup runs about 20 minutes. Do it once and Bar Cop builds on it from there.

What Bar Cop does

Your POS rings the sales. Bar Cop runs everything that decides whether those sales made you money: inventory, labor, shift cash, profit, revenue, cash, events, and your books. You put your numbers in once a week. Bar Cop scores your operation, prices every leak in real dollars, and tells you where to start.

The rhythm: close the week

Bar Cop runs on one sitting at the end of the week. You do not touch it every day. Each week you do three things:

1. Close Control. Count inventory, log hours and tips, reconcile the cash.
2. Confirm the week. Enter or import your sales so every number has something real behind it.
3. Work your biggest leak. Bar Cop flags what is costing you the most. You take down one thing.

Your Hub, your Books, and your Bar Cop Audit all update on their own from the week you just closed.

First-time setup

Set these once:

1. Add your bar. Name it and fill in the basics. Run more than one place? Add the others later. Each location is its own subscription.
2. Set your locations. In Inventory, lay out your storage areas and the order you count in, so counting follows your real walk around the bar instead of a random list.
3. Build your product list. Add your liquor, wine, beer, food, and misc with cost and pour size. That is what lets Bar Cop work out your pour cost and value your shelf.
4. Add your vendors. Who you buy from, their order minimums, and their delivery days.
5. Add your staff and positions. Your roster, wages, and positions, so labor and tips come out right.
6. Set your targets. Your numbers for pour cost, labor percent, and the rest, so Bar Cop knows what on-track looks like for your bar.

You do not have to finish all of it before you get value. One inventory count and one week of sales already gives you a real pour cost and your first audit score.

Getting help on any screen

The deepest help lives inside the app, right where you need it. On any screen, tap the "i" in the top bar for step-by-step directions on exactly what you are looking at. It ships with the app, so it never goes stale.

Where to go next

Once you are set up, the guides here walk each part of Bar Cop: Inventory, Labor, Shift, Profit, Revenue, Cash, Events, and Books, plus how the audits and billing work. Start with the part you work the most.