By Tim Engstrom tengstrom@news-press.com Originally posted on September 02, 2007

Francisco Baserva looks more like a scientist than an auditor as he carefully weighs and charts the contents of brightly colored bottle after bottle.

But, Baserva's discoveries go right to the bottom line and tell an expensive tale of money lost to carelessness, theft and even over-enthusiastic generosity.

All in the form of liquor, beer and wine.

Baserva, 28, is the local franchise operator for Toronto-based Bevinco, a bar and restaurant consulting company.

Since March, Baserva has been auditing the inventories of local bars, finding thousands of dollars of lost profits due to too-strong drinks, liberal giveaways and outright theft.

"Most bars, on average, are losing 25 to 30 percent of everything in their inventory," Baserva said. "One account was missing 45 percent every week when I first worked with them."

For an average bar, that could amount to $4,000 or more per week, he said.

Baserva works with bar owners to get that loss down to about 3 percent.

He said bar owners are sometimes skeptical when he first approaches them with his service.

"They say 'I've been running a bar for 20 or 30 years, what are you going to tell me that I don't already know?''' Baserva said. "But when I show them what they have been losing, they are amazed."

Jason Hall, the owner of Martinis Bar in Cape Coral, said he became a believer quickly after signing on as a Bevinco client.

"It's been great because it would take me a half a day every week to do my inventory and their system is much more intricate than mine is," Hall said. "We used to save empty bottles and that was my inventory control."

When Baserva is first hired, he conducts three weekly audits without the staff or managers knowing. That provides a baseline to measure losses.

Baserva arrives early, when the bar is dim, empty and quiet. He carefully weighs each liquor bottle with a digital scale - accurate to 1/1000 of an ounce - that is attached to a laptop computer. On that computer, Bevinco's proprietary software makes adjustments for the weight of the specific bottle and the density of the liquid inside. A syrupy cordial, for example, is more dense than vodka.

To account for beer, Baserva counts bottles recorded as sold by the electronic cash register against the number of bottles still in inventory. Kegs are weighed on a larger scale.

The most common loss comes simply from the bartender having a heavy hand when they pour.

"Maybe at the bar where they worked before a pour was 11/2 ounces, but here it is 11/4 ounces," Baserva said. "It's not really his fault, but that is unsold inventory."

The second most common loss is free drinks given away to customers, he said.

"You have to give drinks away or pour a stronger drink from time to time because that is part of this business," Baserva said. "You just have to make sure the manager knows and it goes into the system. The owner might be OK with giving away $2,000 in free drinks, but $5,000 might be a different story."

In addition to tracking inventory, Baserva orders new inventory for the bars and offers consultations on how to improve the bar operations. He charges $200 to $400 per week for his services.

Hall, the owner of Martinis, said he likes what the service has done for his business.

"We've almost got to the point where it can't get much better and that's great," Hall said.