Choosing an accountant and bookkeeping setup for a brewery
A brewpub runs two regimes on one bill, holds stock that changes form every week and answers to an excise inspector. The right accountant and a simple monthly routine keep all of that under control.
What makes brewery accounting different
A brewpub sells food that sits under GST and beer that sits under state liquor taxes. It carries raw material stock, beer in tanks and packaged beer, all of which are inventory. It keeps excise registers that must agree with production and sales. A general accountant who has only done retail or services will need time to learn this. You will pay for that learning.
Who you actually need
Most small breweries need three roles, which may be two people or one firm:
- A bookkeeper who enters bills, reconciles the bank and POS every week and keeps stock records current.
- A chartered accountant who handles tax filings, the audit, structure questions and anything the department sends.
- Someone, often the founder at first, who reads the numbers each month and decides what to change.
Questions to ask a CA before hiring: Do you have liquor or hospitality clients? Who in your team will do our work? How do you handle GST on food alongside liquor taxes? What do you need from us each month? By when?
Software and the POS link
Pick accounting software your CA already uses well. Tally and Zoho Books are both common in India. What matters more is the link to your POS: daily sales should flow in by category (beer, food, soft drinks) with tax lines intact, not as one lump. Our guide to POS and inventory software for brewpubs covers what to look for.
Set the chart of accounts with brewing in mind: separate lines for malt, hops, yeast, CO2, cleaning chemicals, utilities, packaging, beer sales and food sales. If everything goes into "purchases", you will never know your beer margin.
Stock and excise, kept together
Count raw materials, beer in tanks and packaged stock at least monthly, on the same day each month. The beer volume should match the excise registers. Keep the excise routine and the books talking to each other, as described in our daily excise routine. When the two drift apart, find out why that week, not at year end.
A monthly close that takes a day
By the fifth working day of each month:
- Reconcile bank, card settlements and POS.
- Enter all supplier bills and payroll.
- Post the stock count and beer volumes.
- Produce a one-page P&L with beer and food margins shown separately.
- Compare against budget and write three lines on what changed.
That one page is what you use to run the business. Filing deadlines are the CA's job. Decisions are yours.
Add a short list of numbers you track every month on the same page: litres brewed, litres sold, beer stock in tanks, raw material cost per litre sold and staff cost as a share of revenue. When one of them moves sharply, the books tell you where to look before the cash runs short.
Tax and payroll questions to raise early
Some questions shape your setup and are cheaper to answer in month one than in year two. Ask your CA how GST input credit works for a business whose beer sales sit outside GST, because that affects how equipment and shared costs are treated. Ask how depreciation on brewing equipment will be claimed and which records support it. Ask which statutory registrations your headcount triggers and when, such as provident fund and state insurance schemes.
Run payroll through the books from the first salary, with proper payslips. Tips, service charge and staff meals all need a clear treatment. Getting these wrong rarely causes a problem in the first month. It causes one when a staff member leaves or an inspector asks. By then two years of records need fixing.
When to upgrade
When you add a second outlet, start packaging for retail or take on investors, the books need more: cost centres per outlet, proper cost per litre, monthly management accounts and possibly a part-time finance lead. Plan the upgrade before the growth, not after the first messy quarter.
The founders who run tight books are usually the ones who learned to read a brewery P&L before they had to defend one to a bank.
Common questions
Does a brewpub need a chartered accountant?
For tax filings, audits and departmental queries, yes. Day-to-day bookkeeping can be done by a bookkeeper or a trained team member.
Which accounting software suits a brewery?
The one your CA uses well and that links cleanly to your POS by sales category. Tally and Zoho Books are both common in India.
How often should I count stock?
At least monthly, on the same day each month, covering raw materials, beer in tanks and packaged beer, matched against excise registers.
Why separate beer and food sales?
They sit under different tax regimes and usually carry very different margins. Lumping them together hides which side earns the money.
