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Once you have figured out how to open a restaurant in a competitive market, it’s time to design the space, build a menu, and hire kitchen staff, as well as waiters. However, the hard work doesn’t end there! Great cuisine needs to be paired with high-quality beverages, which means that every restaurant must have an impeccable beverage menu and wine list.
We have talked at great length about different types of beverages on our blog page and we have given ideas for unique drinks to help you stand out from the crowd. We also have plenty of articles about different varieties of wine, best wine pairings, and even portion control. Sure, all of them can be incredibly helpful but they won’t help you run your restaurant as smoothly as you would like. Once you have the perfect beverage inventory, you need to manage it properly.
Restaurant inventory management can be done manually, but that takes a lot of time, leaves plenty of room for mistakes, and can even make your business lose money. Using appropriate technology to do wine tracking and beverage management has tons of benefits and the future is automated beverage inventory, for sure.
So, if you are the owner or the manager of a restaurant that has a top wine list filled with many unique bottles that you want to track well, this article is for you. We are here to tell you how BinWise can make the lives of restaurant owners, sommeliers, and wine directors easier (see also: wine directors vs sommeliers), save them a ton of time, and even prevent customer disappointment. Want to know how? Let’s dive into it!
The Importance of Wine Tracking for Restaurants
Wine, especially quality wine, is often a high-margin product in restaurants (both regular and Michelin Star restaurants). Utilizing a proper wine-tracking method can significantly impact the restaurant's profitability. Without an accurate system in place, any restaurant can begin experiencing the issues listed below:
- Overstocking and Understocking - Overstocking will tie up the capital of your business into beverage inventory, but it can also lead to spoilage for wines that have a shorter shelf life. Understocking, on the other hand, holds a high risk of disappointing customers and losing sales.
- Inconsistent Wine Lists - If you don’t update your wine list regularly or don’t have enough stock, customers won’t be able to order whatever they prefer from the menu and may end up disappointed. Proper wine tracking helps ensure everything on the wine list is actually available.
- Theft and Shrinkage - High-value wines are vulnerable to theft, unfortunately. Without a proper wine tracking system in place, it will be quite difficult to identify losses.
- Waste - Inefficient stock rotation can lead to expired or improperly stored wine bottles. This can increase waste and make the restaurant lose money.
Effective wine tracking will help any restaurant business avoid these pitfalls. When you are using a reliable wine tracking app, everyone from the management team can see real-time data about the stock levels, consumption patterns, and sale trends. This ensures better financial control, enhances the guest experience, and will help the restaurant optimize operational efficiency.
Key Takeaway: BinWise makes wine tracking as easy as a child’s play! With the real-time tracking abilities of the platform, the dynamic updates of the wine list, alerts when certain wines are running low, and other amazing functionalities, it’s a true game changer for restaurant owners with extensive wine lists!
How BinWise Does Wine Tracking
BinWise is designed specifically to address the challenges that come with managing a large wine list. Here are all the different ways BinWise helps with wine tracking and makes the lives of restauranteurs easier:
- Real-time Inventory Tracking - BinWise tracks each bottle of wine from the moment it enters the restaurant’s inventory until it is sold. It updates stock levels in real time, ensuring managers always know exactly how much of each wine is available.
- Automated Reorder Alerts - You will never run out of prosecco, port wine, or another crowd favorite because BinWise will notify you when stocks are running low and a replenishment is needed.
- Automated Ordering and Reordering - You can also use BinWise to do the ordering and reordering automatically for you. By analyzing the current sales data and the stock levels, BinWise can reorder popular wines when they are running low. This eliminates the guesswork out of the equation.
- Reporting and Analytics - BinWise provides detailed sales and inventory reports to help with forecasting and decision-making. With insights into which wines are selling quickly and which are moving slowly, restaurants can adjust their wine list to better match customer preferences and increase profitability.
- Mobile Accessibility - Because BinWise can be accessed from different mobile devices, it allows management to check inventory data remotely when needed.
- Barcode Scanning - The ability to do barcode scanning simplifies the process of adding and removing stock from the inventory, which is especially useful when you have a large wine list to manage.
- Efficient Wine List Management - With BinWise, you can seamlessly manage your wine list based on the availability of different wines. The menu can be dynamically updated, making sure customers can order only what’s really available. Every type of wine that is no longer available will be removed from the wine list.
How BinWise Will Improve Restaurant Operations with Accurate Wine Tracking
Implementing BinWise for wine tracking has numerous advantages that extend beyond inventory management. Below you can see the main benefits you will get by doing wine tracking with our platform!
Time Savings
By automating many aspects of wine inventory management, like stock counts and reordering, BinWise frees up staff to focus on other important tasks. For example, wine curation or working on improving customer service. This increased efficiency leads to smoother operations in general.
Improved Financial Control
With the real-time information from BinWise about wine sales and consumption patterns, restauranteurs can make strategic purchasing decisions, which will lead to better cost control. With our beverage management system, you can reduce the risk of overstocking expensive wines that may not sell quickly. This will greatly improve the cash flow.
Enhances Customer Experience
As we already mentioned a few times, the use of a wine tracking system like BinWise can help you tremendously improve the customer experience. Accurate tracking means that the wines listed on the menu will always be available and prevent customer disappointment. Additionally, by identifying which wines are most popular, restaurants can better tailor their offerings to guest preferences.
Consistency Across Locations
If you run a restaurant group or a chain with multiple locations, BinWise will help you do the wine tracking and beverage management. Our platform provides centralized control over inventory to ensure consistency in offerings and pricing across all locations. This helps maintain brand integrity and improves operational coordination between sites.
Frequently Asked Questions about Using BinWise for Wine Tracking
If you want to know the answers to some of the most frequent questions we get regarding wine tracking, read the paragraphs below!
How Does BinWise Track Wine Inventory?
BinWise used barcodes or other digital tools to scan and track bottles of wine when they enter or leave the inventory. It automatically updates stock levels and provides real-time visibility into what wines are available, which are running low, and which are moving slowly.
Can BinWise Help Reduce Wine Waste?
BinWise helps reduce waste by tracking wine expiration dates and ensuring proper stock rotation (first-in, first-out). It alerts managers when certain wines are nearing their expiration, allowing them to adjust promotions or offer those wines as specials to reduce waste.
Can BinWise Integrate with Other Systems in the Restaurant?
BinWise seamlessly integrated with POS systems, accounting platforms, and procurement software. This integration allows for consistent and automated data flow between sales, inventory, and financial reporting systems.