What are deposits, fees and credits on a beverage invoice?
A deposit is money held on a container you give back, such as a keg, or bottles and cans in states with a bottle bill; a fee is a charge on top of the product, such as delivery, fuel or a split case; and a credit takes money off for returns, breaks or shorts. Keep all three out of the item's cost.
It reads the invoice, you check the lines it flags.
Steps
- Find the deposit lines and track kegs out against empties returned.
- Find the fee lines and decide where they go in your books.
- Match each credit memo to the invoice it fixes.
- Check that the credit shows on the next statement.
- Cost the product from the item lines only.
Where PourParse fits
Read the invoice into a spreadsheet with PourParse and check the deposit and fee lines before you add the items to your costs. Every line comes out as printed, with the quantity, unit price and line total. Sign in and your first 5 reads are free, then $5 a month for up to 50 reads a month.
Questions
- Why is a keg deposit in the beer cost a problem?
- The deposit makes the beer look more expensive than it is, so the pour cost reads high. The deposit also comes back when the empty goes back.
- Is a split case fee part of the bottle cost?
- Keep it as a fee line. Then the case math stays clean, and you can see what the fee adds across a month.
- What does PourParse do?
- It reads a supplier invoice, a PDF or a phone photo, and gives you every line with its item, quantity, unit price and line total, ready to download for Excel, or as CSV or JSON. Lines it is not sure of are flagged for you to check.
- What does it cost?
- The first 5 reads are free, once per account, and need no card. You sign in to read your own invoice. After that it is $5 a month for up to 50 reads a month, and you can cancel any time.
- Which invoices does it read?
- Food, beverage, produce, dairy and supply invoices from any distributor, as a PDF or a phone photo. Drop several at once and each is read on its own, two at a time. Photos up to 3 MB, PDFs up to 1.5 MB and four pages.
- What happens to my invoice?
- Nothing is kept, not the file and not the lines. Download the spreadsheet before you leave the page. If you send us a read with Have an issue? Let us know, we get that invoice by email to fix the reader and delete it once it is fixed.
- Who makes it?
- PourPar, which also makes drink costing, prep and ordering tools for bars and restaurants.