Year-End Stock Count for Bars: How to Count It Right

New Year's Eve, just after four. The last guests are gone, the bar top is sticky, and now someone still has to count the back bar. One person says the gin is "a good half full", the other would have said "a third". This is exactly how a year-end stock count in a bar ends up being something nobody can rely on in January - and you can still change that before the year is over.

What the law requires for the year-end stock count

Anyone who keeps books as a merchant must, under § 240 para. 2 HGB (Handelsgesetzbuch, the German Commercial Code), draw up an inventory (Inventar: a complete list of your assets with their values) as of the end of each financial year. If your financial year is the calendar year, that date is 31 December. The inventory does not have to be finished the same night, but within "the time corresponding to proper business practice" (also § 240 para. 2 HGB; our translation).

You also don't necessarily have to count on the cutoff date itself. § 241 para. 3 HGB allows a count on any day within the last three months before or the first two months after the end of the financial year. The condition: you can properly roll the stock forward or back to the cutoff date. With a cutoff date of 31 December, that window runs from early October to the end of February.

Whether and in what form these obligations apply to your business depends on its legal form and size. Small sole proprietorships get some relief. Clarify the exact thresholds with your tax advisor (Steuerberater) before you set the count date.

Status of the legal texts in this article: 19 October 2026.

Preparation: who counts what, and in which order

Most mistakes don't happen during the count, but before it. Plan count night like a shift.

• Define count zones: cellar, walk-in cooler, back bar, under-counter fridge drawers, speed rail. Each zone gets its own sheet.
• Fixed order: in storage from left to right, shelf by shelf; on the back bar from top to bottom. The sheet follows this order, not the alphabet.
• Two people per zone: one counts and calls out the number, the other writes it down. A transposed digit gets caught right away.
• Tidy up first: put identical items in one place, combine opened cases, clear out empties. Anything that isn't part of your stock (consignment goods, private bottles) gets marked or removed.
• No movement during the count: don't accept deliveries and don't move anything from storage to the bar while you are counting.

Opened bottles: estimate or weigh

In a bar, full cases are rarely the problem. The hard part is the opened bottles on the back bar. You have two options.

Estimating in tenths

Every opened bottle is recorded in tenths: 0.3 means three tenths full. This is quick and often good enough for a year-end count. To keep results comparable: hold the bottle at eye level, put it on a level surface, and always use the same person or the same two people.

Weighing

A kitchen scale is more accurate. For each product, you note once the weight of the empty bottle and of the full bottle. The fill level then works out like this:

Fill level = (current weight − empty weight) ÷ (full weight − empty weight)

An example with assumed values: empty weight 480 g, full weight 1,140 g, 810 g on the scale. That gives 330 ÷ 660 = 0.5, so the bottle is half full. Weigh an empty and a full bottle of each product yourself instead of simply converting grams to milliliters. Glass bottles and spirits differ in weight.

What the difference costs

A worked example: your back bar holds 120 opened 0.7-l bottles, bought on average at 22.00 € net. One milliliter therefore costs you about 3.1 cents. If your team in December estimates every bottle on average half a tenth (35 ml) too generously, that is about 1.10 € per bottle and about 132 € across the whole back bar.

For the balance sheet that sounds like little. The real problem comes in January: if you then estimate more strictly or weigh, these 132 € show up as missing stock, even though not a single bottle is missing. That's why the most important rule is: Pick one method and stick with it.

Valuation: purchase price, not selling price

Stock is valued at no more than its cost of acquisition (§ 253 para. 1 HGB), meaning what you paid, not the price on your menu. Cost of acquisition also includes incidental costs. Reductions in the purchase price that can be assigned to the goods individually must be deducted (§ 255 para. 1 HGB). In practice: discounts or cash discounts (Skonti) on a delivery are deducted, as far as you can assign them to the goods. If the value has fallen by the cutoff date, you must write down to the lower value under § 253 para. 4 HGB.

It gets tricky when the same gin sits in storage at different prices. The law allows, among other things, two approaches here: the weighted average (§ 240 para. 4 HGB) or the assumption that the goods bought first were used first, i.e. FIFO (§ 256 HGB).

A worked example: in October you bought 3 bottles of gin at 20.00 €, in December 6 bottles at 22.00 €, and there was nothing left before that. On the cutoff date, 5 bottles are still there.

• FIFO: the old bottles are used up, the 5 remaining ones come from December: 5 × 22.00 € = 110.00 €
• Weighted average: (3 × 20.00 € + 6 × 22.00 €) ÷ 9 = 21.33 € per bottle, 5 × 21.33 € = 106.67 €

You decide with your tax advisor which method to use. Also discuss whether you will keep it in the following years.

After the count: check the difference and keep the records

A single stock count tells you what is there. What is missing, you only see by comparison: the stock from the last count plus purchases minus usage according to sales gives the expected stock, and the count gives the actual stock. Without a previous count, there is no such comparison.

So here is a tip for this year: do a trial count by early December at the latest, with the same sheets, the same people and the same method for opened bottles. Then your year-end count is your second one, and for the first time you see real differences per item. On the side, you learn how long counting really takes.

You must keep inventories for ten years under § 147 paras. 1 and 3 AO (Abgabenordnung, the German Fiscal Code). The period starts at the end of the calendar year in which the inventory was drawn up (§ 147 para. 4 AO). If you draw up the inventory as of 31 December 2026 in January 2027, the period therefore runs until the end of 2037. File the count sheets together with the date and the names of the people who counted, and ask your tax advisor how long you should keep them.

Checklist for count night

To print and hang on the cooler door:

1. Cutoff date and counting period agreed with the tax advisor
2. Count zones defined, one sheet per zone in shelf order
3. Two people assigned per zone, names on the sheet
4. Method for opened bottles decided (tenths or scale); if using a scale, empty and full weights noted
5. Storage tidied, third-party goods and empties marked or removed
6. No deliveries and no moving things around during the count
7. Every item has a value, including 0 - an empty field is not a zero
8. Sheet signed off by both counters at the end
9. Valuation at net purchase price, method agreed with the tax advisor
10. Count sheets and inventory filed, inventory kept for ten years

What to decide before count night

A good year-end stock count is decided before count night: fixed zones, a fixed order, one method for opened bottles and a clear valuation method. If you do a trial count first, then at year-end you don't just have a number you are required to produce, but for the first time a real comparison.

In BevoraX, you count on your phone per storage location with a fixed count sheet of all products in that location, so nothing gets forgotten. You record opened bottles on a separate screen using a fill-level slider. Important to know: the first stock count only sets the starting stock, and you see shortfalls and surpluses in euros from the second count at the same location. If you start now, you can count twice before the end of the year. The differences become meaningful once your sales are recorded as well, for example via cash report scan or CSV import. Free until 31 December 2026, no credit card required. Start for free

This article provides general information and does not replace tax or legal advice.