Track kegs through distribution

A keg costs you money twice: once for the beer inside it, and again for the deposit on the vessel itself. Distribution (/beverages/distribution) is where BevWerk tracks both, from the order you place to the deposit you get back.

The five stages

Distribution is organized as five tabs, and they follow the real life of a keg in order.

Ordered

What you have asked a distributor for but have not physically received. This is your open commitment — useful when you are deciding whether to order more of something or whether a delivery is late.

Received

What arrived. Receiving is the moment a keg becomes real inventory you can put on tap, so this stage is the bridge between Distribution and your Kegs workspace.

Empty Kegs

Kegs you have finished pouring. They still belong to the distributor, and they still represent money you have tied up, so they stay tracked rather than disappearing when the beer runs out.

Returned Kegs

Empties that have gone back. This is the stage that closes the loop on the vessel itself.

Keg Deposits

The money side. Deposits follow the keg through every stage above, and this tab is where you see what you have paid out and what should be coming back.

Why the vessel is tracked separately from the beer

It is tempting to think of a keg as a single thing that arrives full and leaves empty. Financially it is two things. The beer is a cost of goods you recover when you sell pints. The deposit is a refundable asset sitting in your cooler and, later, on your loading dock.

Separating Empty Kegs from Returned Kegs exists for exactly this reason. An empty keg in your building is unrecovered money. A returned keg is money on its way back. Collapsing the two would hide the gap between them, which is precisely the number worth watching.

Exports

Several tabs offer a CSV export, including keg returns and keg deposits. Use these when you are reconciling against a distributor statement, because the conversation with a distributor usually happens in their format rather than yours.

What to do next

• Set up the distributors these orders come from in Manage your catalog.
• Once kegs are received, put them to work in Manage inventory with confidence.