Prepaid bar tab for an event

[FabWeddings]

Hello

I need to manage prepaid bar tabs (hosted).

This means someone prepays an amount of money and then a number of drinks are served free to their guests. For example, the host could put $2000 at the bar and say to us, serve any drinks to anyone until the money runs out, and, after that, they need to pay for their own drinks.

I could do in a couple of ways.

A. If I had a some kind of payment device in the system that kept track of money spent then I could just serve any drinks (items) available at that location. I could not figure out how to do this in the system - for example, if I created a virtual gift card and loaded it with the desired amount...

B. I could create inventory items specific to that event / location. For example, I could create an inventory item called Hosted Drinks for Liz and stock just enough, then I could give these drinks away until the inventory runs out... I tried this but the system allows me to give away more than what I have stock on hand - is this a bug or is there a way to stop this from happening? Images below.

The problem with the above is that the price per drink would have to be some weird average number (could live with that) or free, or $0.01... but that would skew sales reports so option A would be better if available.

Here is the inventory item - assume Liz gave us $50 and prepaid 10 drinks worth $5 each.

the item inventory screen correctly shows inventory on hand

Using the terminal, I have no indication what is on hand / in stock (this should be an easy improvement)

Not knowing what is in stock, the bar tender gives away 20 drinks

Using the OTHER payment method, we do not receive payment, and sales reports are probably skewed.

After the transaction the inventory is now Negative 10 but the bartender can still serve drinks for Liz's prepaid bar

Monday morning I come to the office to find out that we lost a bunch of money:

Given that prepaid tabs are very common, how do we handle this kind of situation in a fashion that is easy to set up, and does not create useless activity reports, and does not lose us money?

Thanks

Thanks

[RHatch]

I think you are over thinking this.  If you sell them a gift card or E-Gift card for $2000.00.  The first sale you make you put it under "Company name" and save the gift card as a card on file.  Then you just ring sales as they come clicking on card on file every time.  This deducts from the gift card amount and you are good. 

The other way you can do this is with Open ticket. Open a ticket for the customer and keep adding drinks to it until you hit the amount.  Then at the end of the night ring the transaction and settle with the customer.

[FabWeddings]

Thank you for the reply and taking the time.

The Open ticket is not an option because everything we do needs to be prepaid... so running the tab until we hit the amount assumes the 2-3-4 bartenders running an event keep checking whether we are there yet, and never make mistakes... mistakes are free drinks we don't get paid for, so I would like to avoid this when possible. Now, if we could put a DO NOT EXCEED amount on an open ticket we'd be set!

Gift cards - thank you -I agree something like this would be simplest and best.

I just checked gift cards out based on your suggestion - two issues here: 2.9% processing fee and limit of $2000 per card.  Would there be some other payment method in the system to overcome one or both issues?

[RHatch · Accepted solution]

Using open ticket will give you the balance as you add to it and if they are going to give away drinks it doesn't matter how you do it.

Physical gift cards don't cost anything to use but there is still a $2000 cap and you need to purchase some cards.

[FabWeddings]

Thank you, will experiment with both. Cheers!

[Anthem]

I'll add to comments from @RHatch, we use the open ticket regularly for this. Several times a year we host different events for teachers, healthcare workers, first responders, etc. We have customers that donate toward a fund to cover drinks for a service segment. We use open tickets to track the drinks given out and either end the promotion when the fund is empty or run the rest of the day on the house. 

This method works very well, we've had no problems, other than PEBKAC issues, and those always create training opportunities that allow us time to work with and support our team. 

[PIVO_Brewery]

• We have a wedding venue and run into trouble when there are too many items on an open ticket. The system gets really slow and glitchy. I will try the gift card method instead! @FabWeddings what has been working best for you?

[elmbar]

WE have very similar issue when offering hosted tabs up to a certain amount. We have different price points on all of our products. Did you ever try any other method? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks