How to Build Bar Inventory in Google Sheets & Excel

The Two Paths to Bar Inventory

Every bar eventually faces the same fork in the road:

1. Keep wrestling with manual counts and spreadsheets.
2. Turn your spreadsheet into a living system, powered by an AI agent that does the grunt work.

Let’s walk through both, so you can see where AI makes sense for your bar.

Option 1: Manual Bar Inventory in Google Sheets or Excel

Step 1: Set Up Your Template

Whether you start in Google Sheets or Excel, create a clean header row:

• Item Name
• Brand
• Category (Beer, Wine, Vodka, etc.)
• Location (Front bar, back bar, cooler, storage)
• Unit Size
• Par Level
• On-hand Quantity
• Cost per Unit
• Value (formula: Quantity × Cost)

Freeze the top row so headings stay visible as you scroll.

Step 2: Organize by Location

Walk your bar the way your team moves:

1. Front bar
2. Back bar
3. Beer cooler
4. Wine room or rack
5. Storage

Group rows by these locations. This mirrors your physical space, which makes counting faster and training new staff much easier.

Step 3: Do a Full Initial Count

When the bar is closed:

• Work in pairs: one person reads labels and levels, the other types.
• Count full bottles as 1, partials as decimals (e.g., 0.6).
• Update every item into the sheet.

In Google Sheets, share the file with managers. In Excel, save a dated copy each time (e.g., Bar_Inventory_2025-03-01.xlsx).

Step 4: Add Basic Automations

Even manually, you can make the sheet work harder:

• Formulas:
  • Value = =Quantity*Cost_per_Unit
  • Pour cost % = Cost_of_Goods_Sold / Sales (if you log weekly totals).
• Conditional formatting:
  • Highlight items where Quantity < Par Level in red.

Step 5: Set a Cadence

Pick a rhythm and stick to it:

• High-volume bars: weekly counts.
• Smaller bars: bi-weekly or monthly.

Consistency is where insights come from. Random counts only give you random panic.

Manual Approach: Pros and Cons

Pros

• Simple, cheap, and familiar.
• Easy to customize for your specific bar.
• No new tools to learn.

Cons

• Time-consuming and repetitive.
• Error-prone—especially late at night.
• Hard to scale across locations or teams.

Option 2: Automate at Scale With an AI Computer Agent

Manual spreadsheets are a good starting point, but if you run a busy bar, group, or multi-location concept, they become a tax on your time. This is where a Simular AI agent comes in.

Simular Pro agents behave like a super-reliable digital barback: they can open your desktop apps, work inside Google Sheets or Excel, log counts, run formulas, and prep reports—step by step, exactly as a person would, but without getting tired.

What an AI Agent Can Do for Bar Inventory

• Open your Google Sheets or Excel template on your computer.
• Read the latest vendor delivery emails and add new items.
• Record daily or weekly counts you or staff jot down.
• Update formulas, pour cost, and total value automatically.
• Flag anomalies (e.g., a bottle that dropped from 1.0 to 0.1 overnight).
• Draft reorder lists based on par levels and recent usage.

How to Automate the Workflow

1. Record Your Ideal Process
   Define the exact steps you take: open sheet, select tab by location, update quantities, refresh calculations, export a PDF or summary.
2. Teach Those Steps to a Simular Agent
   In Simular Pro, you describe the workflow in natural language. The agent then operates on your actual desktop, clicking where you would click. Because Simular focuses on transparent execution, you can see every move it makes.
3. Test on One Night’s Inventory
   Run the agent on a single day or week of data. Watch it work in Google Sheets or Excel, check the numbers, and tweak instructions where needed.
4. Scale to a Schedule
   Once you trust the flow, have the agent run automatically:
   • Every Sunday night to prep Monday orders.
   • Nightly to update usage and strike variances.
   • Across multiple locations using different copies of the template.

Automated Approach: Pros and Cons

Pros

• Frees hours of low-value computer work.
• Consistent execution, even for complex multi-step workflows.
• Easy to audit: with Simular, every action is inspectable.
• Scales from one bar to a full group without more headcount.

Cons

• Requires a bit of upfront setup and testing.
• Still benefits from human oversight on edge cases.

When to Switch From Manual to AI

You’ll feel the tipping point:

• Inventory nights are stealing your only day off.
• Different managers do counts differently.
• You’re blind to trends across weeks or locations.

At that moment, you don’t need a more complex Excel model—you need a computer agent that can sit between your people and your spreadsheets, taking the repetitive work off everyone’s plate.

With Google Sheets or Excel as your backbone and a Simular AI agent as your hands on the keyboard, bar inventory stops being a dreaded chore and becomes a quiet advantage you can actually trust.