Happy Hour, Liquor VAT and Bottle Counts: Running a Bar on Restrofi

A bar runs on different maths from a restaurant. Drinks are cheaper between five and eight. Liquor carries state VAT while the food on the same table carries GST. And the number that decides your margin is not on any bill: how much is actually left in each bottle at the end of the night.

Restrofi now handles all three: happy-hour pricing, liquor VAT on the bill, and liquor counts that compare what should be in each bottle with what is.

Happy hour that prices itself

Set happy-hour rules by day and time, in your outlet's own time zone. For example: "Monday to Friday, 17:00 to 20:00, 30% off cocktails".

• What it covers: the whole menu, chosen categories, chosen drinks, or alcoholic drinks only.
• How much off: a percentage, a flat amount, or a fixed happy-hour price.
• Late windows: a window can run past midnight. A Friday 22:00 to 01:00 rule still counts as Friday's happy hour at 00:30.

The same rule runs everywhere a drink is priced: the table QR menu, the staff app and the Connect till. The price a guest sees is the price they are billed. On the QR menu, guests see the happy-hour price with the menu price struck through, and a banner shows when the current window ends. When a window closes, new rounds go back to menu price automatically. Nobody has to remember to switch prices at 8 pm.

If two rules cover the same drink, the lower price wins.

Liquor VAT and food GST on one bill

In most states, liquor is outside GST and carries state VAT instead. Turn on liquor tax in Settings, enter your state's rate and the label you want printed (for example "VAT on liquor"), and add your VAT number.

From then on:

• alcoholic lines carry VAT at your rate, and food keeps its GST;
• the bill shows separate tax rows, so GST and VAT are never mixed;
• your VAT number prints on the bill header;
• if you prefer, food and liquor print as two sections of the same bill, each with its own subtotal and tax, under one bill number.

Split bills, split-by-guest and voids all keep the VAT correct. Restrofi does not calculate excise duty.

Liquor counts: where did the rum go?

Liquor stock is tracked in ml. Each drink's recipe says what it pours, and peg sizes (30, 60, 90 ml) deduct their own ml, so stock falls as drinks are sold.

At the end of the night, or the week, staff do a liquor count from Inventory. For every bottle, Restrofi shows:

• expected: the last count, minus every peg sold, wasted or moved since then;
• counted: what your team measured;
• the difference, in ml, in pegs and in money at cost.

A shortfall of 90 ml on one bottle is a mistake. The same shortfall every night on the same brand is a pattern, and now it is a number you can see instead of a feeling.

Everything else a bar needs

These features were already live and work together with the new ones:

• drinks print on the bar's own KOT printer and show on a bar display, while food goes to the kitchen;
• running tabs per table, round after round, with guests reordering from the table QR;
• one order split into separate food and drinks bills;
• age-consent capture on orders with alcohol, and alcohol kept off the delivery menu;
• wastage tracking for spills and breakage.

Getting started

Happy hours live under Menu → Combos & Offers, liquor tax under Settings, and liquor counts under Inventory → Liquor. Set them up once and your tills, waiter phones and QR menu pick them up on their own.