With the new year quickly approaching, it’s time to start planning for 2024. For any brewery, brewing beer is the primary focus, but as a brewery owner, you know that you need more than just delicious beer to be successful in today’s industry. Having a solid financial plan and understanding of your cost of goods is essential to running a successful brewery and to ensure a profitable year ahead.
When you’re getting ready for the new year and planning out your financials, there are several factors that you’ll need to account for. Getting ahead on things like production forecasting, understanding your cost of goods sold (COGS), streamlining your accounting, and ensuring you’re compliant with regulatory requirements are all extremely important.
Fortunately, Beer30 brewery software can help.
Production Forecasting
For starters, you’ll need to figure out how much beer you’re going to need for the year ahead. Once you know your projected production you’ll be able to get a better idea of the costs that will be involved and your potential sales.
Forecasting your production will require you to take a look at many factors. If your brewery has been in operation for a while you can look at historical data, local trends, and seasonal/market demand to get a better idea of what your production should be.
With Beer30 brewery management software you can get comprehensive historical sales reports that provide valuable insights into sales trends from the previous years. It’s simple to visualize your data with easy-to-understand reports and identify seasonal patterns and customer preferences to prepare for what’s to come this year.
If you really want to put your production forecasting on easy mode and ensure that you’re getting accurate predictions, the Beer30 Demand Planning module and package forecasting are the way to go. The Demand Planning module can help you accurately predict your production needs to meet your sales plan for the year ahead, thereby reducing the risk of overproduction or underproduction.
Not only that, but Beer30’s Material Resource Planner (MRP) can even forecast your purchasing needs for ingredients, packaging materials, and other resources, helping you optimize inventory levels, reduce costs, and minimize waste.
With all of these tools at your disposal, it’s easy to calculate your production costs for the year to come.
Understanding Your Cost of Goods Sold
Once you know how much product you’ll need, it’s important to forecast your Cost of goods sold (COGS). COGS represents the direct costs associated with producing the beer you sell, encompassing ingredients like malts, hops, yeast, packaging materials, and direct labor costs. Knowing your COGS is vital because it serves as a fundamental building block for determining your brewery's profitability. By having a clear grasp of these costs, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about pricing your beer, setting sales targets, and ultimately ensuring your business remains profitable. Accurate COGS data also helps you identify areas where cost-saving measures can be implemented, potentially boosting your bottom line and allowing you to allocate resources more effectively.
Before Beer30, brewers were forced to use spreadsheets and a little bit of guesswork to try and calculate the actual cost of goods. As you can imagine, this is often an unreliable and cumbersome process because with spreadsheets, each item has to be entered manually and it can become difficult to keep track of everything that goes into brewing your beer.
Beer30 offers the most powerful COGS reporting in the industry, allowing you to track costs at a granular level. The powerful brewery software differentiates itself from others in the industry by accounting for raw material and packaging material price fluctuations from batch to batch. Furthermore, the system factors beer losses during fermentation, filtration, and packaging into your final COGS breakdown for each batch, so you have an accurate understanding of how your efficiency impacts your costs.
This full breakdown of your COGS gives you the insight you need to see what’s working in your brewery and what’s a waste of money.
Streamlining Your Accounting Workflow
Having accurate financial data readily available can help you identify which beers are the most profitable and what adjustments you may need to make in terms of cash flow or purchasing. By streamlining your accounting workflow, you can easily spot cost-saving opportunities, such as negotiating better deals with suppliers or optimizing energy consumption in your brewing process. Overall, a well-organized accounting system empowers brewery owners to proactively manage their finances, ultimately leading to improved profitability and sustainable growth.
While brewery accounting can be daunting at first, Beer30 simplifies the process. The software seamlessly integrates with popular accounting software like QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Xero, streamlining your financial workflow. Say goodbye to manual data entry to reduce the chances of errors and avoid tedious number crunching by using Beer30 and QBO or Xero.
Reporting and Compliance
Let’s be honest, even the most hardcore finance gurus don’t get excited about tax compliance. That being said, maintaining tax compliance is of paramount importance for any brewery, as it ensures legal and financial stability. Failure to meet tax obligations can result in substantial penalties, fines, and even legal actions, which can severely impact your brewery's bottom line.
Fortunately, Beer30 helps take the pain out of tax compliance and reporting by providing reporting tools that help you stay compliant with industry regulations. With a user-friendly interface, it simplifies the complex process of calculating and remitting excise taxes, helping breweries avoid costly errors and penalties. The software also provides automated reminders for tax deadlines, reducing the risk of missed payments.
Beer30's comprehensive tax compliance features not only ensure legal adherence but also support breweries in building a reputation for financial responsibility and transparency within the industry.
Conclusion
When it comes to financial planning for your brewery, there’s a lot to cover. From production forecasting, understanding your cost of goods sold (COGS), streamlining your accounting, and ensuring you’re compliant with regulatory taxes it’s important to prepare for the new year.
With Beer30 software, you can streamline your financial planning and get back to doing what you love - brewing awesome beer. Beer30 offers a customizable solution that can easily be tailored to the unique needs of your brewery and help you get a handle on your finances. Book a demo today to learn how Beer30 can help streamline your financial goals in the new year.
