Inventory Control is where you track what you buy, what you pour, and what it costs, so nothing walks out the door unaccounted for. It runs on a weekly cycle: set it up once, then count, order, and receive every week, and the reports show you where the money leaks. Here is the order it goes in.

1. Add your products and vendors

Build your product list, the bottles, kegs, cases, and food you stock, with the cost and pour size that price out every drink, then add the distributors you buy from. Products link to a vendor by name, and a vendor's delivery days sharpen your pars. See Add Your Products and List Your Vendors.

2. Set your locations and count order

Lay out the spots you keep product, your bars, coolers, and storerooms, and drag them into the order you walk the room, so your count sheet matches real life. See Set Your Locations and Count Order.

3. Build any house-made batches

Make things in-house like simple syrup, a margarita mix, or a marinara base? Build the recipe once so any menu item can use the batch as a costed ingredient. See Build Prep Batches.

4. Take a count

Walk the room and count what is on hand, one location at a time, in the order you arranged. Two counts give Bar Cop the usage it needs for variance and pars. For a fast theft-and-overpour read on a single shift at one bar, run a Spot Check instead. See Take a Count.

5. Order to par

After the count, the Order Sheet builds your order off on-hand versus par, grouped by vendor, and warns you before you send a short one. See Order to Par.

6. Receive the delivery

When the truck shows, log what came in against what you ordered and what you got charged, and flag any short count or price jump on the spot. See Receive a Delivery.

7. Read your reports

Once you have two counts, the Usage Report shows what you burned through, and with your POS sales the Variance Report shows product that left without a sale. Dynamic Pars then suggests par levels off your real usage so you stop guessing.

8. Keep the counts honest

Log the stock that moves or vanishes for a reason, transfers between locations and damage or write-offs, so it never reads as mystery shrinkage. Track empty kegs and bottles to claim your deposits back and stay compliant. See Log Transfers and Adjustments and Track Empties.

Why it all connects: your counts, deliveries, and logs feed one picture, what you actually used and what it cost, which drives your variance, your pour costs, and the leak numbers in Profit Recovery. Count honestly and those numbers stay real.