Stock takes

Breww's stock take (also known as a stock count) tool allows you and your team to perform accurate, auditable counts of your stock whenever you need. A stock take updates your stock levels to the figures you enter, whilst leaving a clear trail of changes throughout the process.

The process is considered as a "wall-to-wall" stock take, where everything in scope is counted and confirmed in one go, while no changes are made during the process. If you simply need to make a few adjustments, please use the adjustment tools on stock items and products instead of this process.

You can count straight into Breww on screen, with your whole team working on the same sheet at once, or download a spreadsheet, fill it in and upload it again.

How do I get started?

To begin a stock take, navigate to Products -> Tools -> Stock takes -> Start stock take.

You will be asked for:

1. Sites - which site you are performing your stock take at. You can select multiple sites if you are counting at several sites simultaneously.
2. Stock take type - whether you are counting your Stock items or your Products:
   • A Stock items stock take covers your ingredients, packaging materials and any other item in the Stock items section.
   • A Products stock take covers your packaged beers found in the Products section.
3. Export type - whether to count On-screen or in an Excel file. See Choosing how to count below.
4. Start a stock take freeze - whether to lock stock movement while you count. See Stock take freezes.
5. What to count - which part of your stock this count covers. See Choosing what to count below.

You don't need to do both types of stock take in quick succession, although this is common practice, especially at "year-end".

Choosing what to count

A stock take doesn't have to cover everything. You can count just your kegs, just your packaging, or just your hops, and leave the rest of your stock untouched.

Stock items

Select a type to count all of it. To narrow a type, select only some of its sub-types instead - for example, selecting Hop and Grain under Ingredient counts just those and leaves your finings, yeast and everything else alone.

Narrowing a type to particular sub-types excludes the items under that type that have no sub-type at all. If you want those counted too, select that type's Items with no sub-type as well.

Selecting every sub-type of a type, or selecting the type itself, both mean "count all of this type".

Products

• Container types to count - only products packaged in the selected container types are included.
• Include mixed packs - a mixed pack can hold several container types, so it is included or excluded on its own rather than by the container types selected above.
• Include pallets - includes every pallet and all of its contents, whatever container types they hold, including container types not selected above. Entering 0 against a pallet removes all of its contents.
• Group non-returnable containers - keep this enabled if you would like to group your non-returnable container stock into a single line per batch, rather than per container or packaging.

You must select at least one container type, or include mixed packs or pallets. A stock take with nothing to count cannot be started.

Seeing what a stock take covered

Because a stock take zeroes anything it covered but didn't see, knowing what each one covered is what tells you how to read its results months later. The Counted column on your stock takes list, and the What's included panel on each stock take, spell this out.

Choosing how to count

On-screen

On-screen gives you and your team a shared sheet inside Breww. There is no file to download or upload, everyone counting sees the same sheet, and changes appear for the others as they are typed. Breww checks each row as it is touched, so mistakes are caught while you count rather than at the end.

See Counting a stock take on screen for the full guide.

Excel

Excel gives you a spreadsheet to download, fill in and upload again. This suits a count where the people doing it aren't at a screen, or where you want to split the work across several files.

The file is a real Excel file rather than a CSV, and it is worth keeping it that way. Excel and other applications that can read CSV files will typically try to guess the type of data in the file and then "correct" it for you. For example, a batch code of 0123 will be "helpfully" converted to 123, which is incorrect as this is a batch code, not a number. With an actual Excel file, Breww can embed in the file that the cell should be treated as text instead of a number, which resolves this. So fill in and upload the file as it comes, rather than converting it to CSV along the way.

What do I need to change?

Each row contains details about the stock and has a quantity column. The process differs slightly depending on the stock take type (Stock items or Products), so that's been broken down below. It's the same whether you are counting on screen or in a file.

Stock items

For each row:

• if the quantity is correct, leave it untouched
• if the quantity is wrong, update the quantity column
• if the stock you have doesn't appear, add a line - filling all applicable columns

From just these actions Breww will calculate whether the stock has moved, been created/increased, or been reduced. When updating a line, you should usually only update the quantity column. The exception is when moving stock completely to another location, in which case you can simply update the location.

The unit of measure column

A stock item sheet has a Unit of measure column, telling you which unit each item is counted in.

• Leave it blank to count in the unit the item is tracked in. This is what the column is filled in with to start with.
• Enter a different unit of the same kind and Breww will convert your figure. If an item is tracked in kilograms and you counted it in grams, write 1000 and g, and Breww will record 1 kg.
• A unit of a different kind, or one Breww doesn't recognise, is refused when your count is checked, naming the row, what was written and what the item is tracked in. Masses can be converted to other masses and volumes to other volumes, but a mass cannot become a volume.

Short forms, long forms and plurals are all understood, whatever the capitalisation - kg, KG, Kilogram, grams, l, litres and fl oz all resolve. Items that aren't tracked in any unit leave this column blank.

Products

The Products stock take is slightly more advanced than the Stock items stock take. This is because, as you will know from using Breww, all packaging events are either associated with a returnable cask/keg, or they are assigned a unique ID called a Non-returnable number.

This means that it is possible you will discover stock labelled with a non-returnable number that Breww does not think you have. In this situation, Breww will produce a new non-returnable number for this extra stock, rather than use the old number.

This means that the process is as follows. For each row:

• if the quantity is correct, leave it untouched
• if the quantity is lower, update the quantity column
• if the quantity is higher, create a new line underneath and put the additional quantity in the quantity column. If it has a non-returnable number, remove it from this new line, and we'll provide you with a new one at the end. (Note: If you have chosen to Group non-returnable containers you can simply increase the quantity column for non-returnables)
• if the location is incorrect, reduce the quantity on the existing line, and create a new line with the correct location and quantity in that location (or if it has all moved, simply update the location on the row).
• if the stock you have doesn't appear, add a line - filling all applicable columns, but always leaving Non-returnable number blank.

Pallets

If you have been using the pallets functionality, and you have chosen to include pallets, your stock take will also include a row for each pallet in stock. The process for managing pallets in a stock take is exactly the same as above, except it isn't possible to increase the stock of a pallet. If a pallet is removed in a stock take, its contents will also be removed.

Submitting your count

An on-screen stock take is submitted with the Submit stock take button at the top of the page. If you are using a file, upload your updated file from your stock take detail screen instead.

Either way, Breww will perform a thorough validation of your count before pre-processing it. Once processed, you will be presented with all changes that are about to be made, so you can either approve them or correct your count if you realise a mistake has been made.

Please review this to make sure you are happy - any mistakes cannot be undone once confirmed.

In the below example, the stock of Citra has been reduced by 16.5842kg.

If you are happy, simply click Confirm stock take import, and Breww will update your stock! If the changes to be made aren't what you anticipated, click Cancel stock take import and review your count and this help document to make sure changes were made correctly.

FAQ

My stock take has lots of lines, how can I speed up the process?

For businesses with lots of stock, you will find your Products stock take, in particular, may have lots of lines. Unfortunately, this is the nature of auditable "wall-to-wall" stock takes.

Counting on screen lets your whole team work through the sheet at the same time, which is usually the quickest way through a long one. The sheet has a search box, so each person can filter it down to what they are counting.

If you would rather use a file, we'd recommend breaking it up into shorter files and assigning a location or section to each person or team. Then, once all are complete, someone with some Excel experience will easily be able to put them back together into a single file before uploading it to Breww.

You can also narrow the stock take itself, so you only count part of your stock at a time. See Choosing what to count above.

Can I change my stock in Breww while doing a stock take? What can I and can I not do?

The rule of thumb is that you shouldn't change your stock levels between starting the stock take and submitting your count, as this might result in things becoming difficult to track. Breww will always update your stock to match your count at the point you submit it, so in theory, you can add or remove stock in Breww in the meantime as long as your count also reflects this.

The most reliable way to hold everything still is a stock take freeze, which locks stock movement across your brewery while you count. Orders and invoices carry on as normal.

You can also do the two separate processes of "Stock items" and "Products" on different days if that helps with the logistics of completing the process in one go.

The following are the key actions that affect stock levels (and if they affect the "Stock items" or "Products" process):

• Updating the status of an inventory receipt to "Added to stock". Will only affect "Stock items", not "Products". (Other statuses of inventory receipts and all statuses of purchase orders will not affect stock levels).
• Manual changes to stock levels on stock items or products. This will affect whichever stock take process is appropriate to the item edited.
• Marking an order (delivery) as dispatched. May affect both processes, depending on the items on the order.

Things like placing an order (but not dispatching it) only affect the available quantities of items, not the actual quantity that you have, so these can continue to happen as normal.

What happens if I remove a line completely?

If you remove an entry from your count completely, this will be processed in the same way as if you had set the quantity to zero - the stock will be removed from Breww when your count is processed.

What if I add a tracked container or non-returnable to a site through my stock take that's currently at a different site in Breww that isn't part of my stock take?

For example, let's say we have a tracked container, F0001, which is physically at Site A, but in Breww, it is at Site B. During a stock take of Site A, we include that F0001 is on-site and submit our count. Even though Site B isn't part of our stock take, Breww will still recognise that F0001 must have been moved and move it from Site B to Site A.

How does Breww determine the expiry date for packaged beer stock created in a stock take?

Breww will look through the following options to try to find a sensible expiry date to use for any stock found in a stock take. As soon as an option finds a result, it will be used an subsequent options will be skipped.

• If you are simply increasing the stock level of something already in stock (only applicable to smallpack), then the existing expiry date will be used.
• If your have already packaged the container type on the beer batch in question already, Breww will use the same expiry date as that stock had. If there are multiple dates, Breww will pick on at random.
• If you have packaged anything on the beer batch at all (regardless of container type), Breww will use the date this happened as a "packaging date" and will determine the expiry date based on the number of weeks for the container type (as set on the beer) from on this packaging date.
• If the batch is complete (and nothing was packaged), Breww will assume the packaging occurred on the date the batch was completed and add the number of weeks of expiry from this date.
• Finally, if none of the above options find a date (i.e. the batch is not complete yet), Breww will assume the packaging occurred today and add the number of weeks of expiry to determine the expiry date.

Are part-filled products included in the stock take?

Part-filled products are not currently part of the stock take process. This is by design and not something that we plan to change in the short term. The problem is that if they are included, Breww thought you had one, and you increased this to two, Breww couldn't know how full the extra one was.

Most products are a simple quantity, but these need to know a fill level too, which is out of the scope of the stock take tool. We appreciate that they could have been included and restricted to just being reduced in quantity, but this presents quite a few complications for us and we opted to just keep them completely out of the stock take tool. For now, these will need to have their stock levels manually adjusted.