Collecting liquor weights from Ohaus scale with BC-Wedge and Bar-i intelligent inventory software
Bar-i intelligent inventory is a liquor inventory service which assists bar and restaurants increase their profits by using their liquor inventory as an effective liquor cost control rather than simply to calculate their liquor cost. It is typical in the bar business for bars to experience inventory shrinkage of 20%. Bar-i intelligent inventory provides a cost effective way for bars to turn this loss into profit.
The Bar-i liquor inventory system needs the ability to accurately compare how much product was used with to how much product was rung into the bar’s POS (point-of-sale) system.
In order to accurately account for how much product is used at a bar, Bar-i’s staff weighs all open liquor containers so they can accurately calculate exactly how much product is on hand. A typical bar will have anywhere upwards of 100 bottles which have to be weighed. By accurately weighing bottles, we are able to compare the exact amount of liquor sold (as shown by the bar’s POS system) and the amount used over a period of time to show if there has been any “shrinkage”.
Bar-i was able to develop its own liquor inventory system using BC-Wedge and MS Excel at a fraction of the cost of other liquor inventory solutions. The BC-Wedge software works seamlessly in the background and allows Bar-i to accurately and efficiently record product weights by having them written directly into Excel.
Ohaus Scale
For weighing the bottles, Bar-i currently uses the Ohaus Scout Pro SP6000 scale. This is an RS232 output scale with a RS232-USB converter cable* so that they can be connected directly to the USB ports of their PCs. They usually use Lenovo Windows-based PCs as they have found them to be very high quality as well as the X220 being small with a very long battery life.
*RS232-USB converter cable (by FTDI or Prolific).
These are essential as most new PCs do not have RS232 ports. The converter cables all come with drivers that create virtual serial/RS232 ports on your PC. BC-Wedge (or WinWedge) will treat data at that virtual RS232 port just like it is a real serial port.
Why BC-Wedge?
Jamie Edwards from Bar-i intelligent inventory told us, “Our business would not exist in its current form without BC-Wedge. Aside from the functionality of the software, we like working with TALtech because anytime we have questions, or need to purchase an additional license, we call them directly and speak with knowledgeable, helpful, US-based representatives.”
Download a free 30 day trial version of BC-Wedge or learn more here. If you have specific questions about collecting data from an Ohaus or other scale please contact sales@taltech.com or call 800-722-6004.
If you would like to learn more about Bar-i intelligent inventory, please visit their web site and watch a product demo video at www.bar-i.com.