Brewing the best beer, gin, whisky, vodka or kombucha is an art and brewers work on their recipes for years before they have something worthy of the general public. This being said, it’s still the easy part.
Just to complicate things, add the following:
- brewing in large volumes;
- branding & marketing;
- bottling & packaging; and
- finding, signing up and getting paid by customers.
To have a few pennies left over, the best brewers are also often the best business people.
Efficiencies are achieved in every aspect of your business. From initial capital expenditure, labor, selling, accounts and collections; your system selection (hardware and software) is what defines your bottom line.
Now just to be upfront, we don’t know a huge amount about the machinery and equipment required to brew, but we know a thing or two about software. With Independent Brewing being a relatively young industry, the software systems have historically not been “Fit for purpose”, until recently.
This article is a summary of the tech stack that dozens of Brewers of Beer, Gin, Whisky and Kombucha on the East Coast have adopted to automate their processes, limit their costs and future proof their cashflow.
Accounting
Xero
Probably not a lot needs to be said. 9 out of 10 Australian Brewers use Xero and it provides the easiest way for a Brewery to track and report their numbers, from both an internal and regulatory perspective.
Xero is suitable and affordable for both “up and coming” breweries with 15 customers or established businesses with thousands of consistent trade accounts.
The big benefit of Xero is its App marketplace, where you will find the rest of the tech stack.
Production & Distribution
The Fifth Ingredient – Brew30
For breweries, this SaaS product tracks inventory, brew log & fermentation, sales & distribution.
All your brew and fermentation info is processed through the app and trackable through any mobile, tablet or desktop device.
Integrated with Xero, it will turn sales orders into invoices to make sure all revenue, cost center management, payroll and regulatory reporting is streamlined.
Accounts and Payments
PencilPay
The last piece of software in our tech stack is what keeps the lights on at breweries big and small.
Pencil is an online portal where a customer can complete an account application and store their credit card or bank details for auto-billing in about 60-seconds. They set up the customer in Xero directly from the forms, debit the customer on the due date and reconcile your accounts.
Over a thousand bottle shops, on-premise venues and independent supermarkets have signed up with breweries through PencilPay, so whether your customers are pay-as-you-go or get 7, 14 or 30-day terms you can onboard customers knowing you have “future-proofed” your cashflow.
As a business, you are never too young or old to implement new solutions and if you think your day-to-day jobs are time-consuming now, just wait till you grow or get out of lockdowns.
Pencil provides a 30-day trial, product training and onboarding support all free of charge, so if you’re a Xero user and want to see why dozens of brewers on the East Coast are using this exact tech stack feel free to book a 30-minute demo in the calendar below.