Brewery Delivery Note Bookkeeping for UK Pubs

Brewery delivery note bookkeeping starts with one simple rule: every signed brewery note should become spreadsheet rows that preserve the supplier, delivery date, beer line, keg or cask identifier, container size, ABV, quantity, deposit line, and any empties movement. Those are the fields that let a UK pub turn a draught beer delivery note to spreadsheet rows that are still useful at week end, when the cellar needs checking against purchases, and at month end, when the books need posting without guessing what happened on delivery day.

That structure matters because pub paperwork is doing more than proving something arrived. The delivery note is the received-goods record for wet stock, the first place shortages or substitutions get marked up, and often the only document that still shows the operational reality before the supplier invoice arrives later. If the spreadsheet keeps the right fields, the pub can reconcile cellar stock back to purchases, keep refundable container charges away from beer cost, and sense-check whether duty-related lines on the supplier document make basic commercial sense.

The workflow is different from generic AP capture. A publican or pub bookkeeper is not just looking for an invoice number and total. They are dealing with signed-in-pen notes, crossed-out lines, keg swaps, empties collected on a different day, and cellar language that matters in the books. A line that says 50-litre keg, 4.1% ABV, two fulls delivered, one empty returned, plus a deposit line is not background detail. It is the substance of the bookkeeping entry.

That is why the spreadsheet should be treated as part of the cellar control process, not an after-the-fact finance summary. The better the first capture, the less rework sits in the month-end file.

When those rows are captured on delivery day, the rest of the finance process becomes much cleaner. The pub is no longer rebuilding the week from a faded stack of brewery notes. It is reviewing a live cellar sheet that already reflects what actually came through the door.

The keg and cask fields that matter in the cellar

The useful spreadsheet is not a copy of the document header. It is a capture of the fields that explain what the pub can now sell, what it still owes deposits on, and what needs checking when the invoice arrives. For a keg delivery note Excel UK workflow, the minimum useful row usually includes:

• Supplier and document reference: brewery name, delivery date, note number, and later the supplier invoice reference if it is added during reconciliation.
• Beer line details: product or brand name, pack type, and whether the line is cask or keg.
• Container identity and size: keg barcode or cask ID as the first-class line identifier, plus the declared size such as 30-litre keg, 50-litre keg, or the relevant cask format.
• Movement fields: quantity of fulls delivered and empties collected on the same visit.
• Commercial and duty context: ABV, unit price, deposit line, and any visible relief or discount marker.
• Cellar-life controls: best-before date or shelf-life expiry where the supplier paperwork shows it, so the row is useful for cellar checks as well as bookkeeping.
• Exceptions: short-delivery notes, substitutions, damaged containers, or handwritten amendments.

Keg and cask detail should not be flattened into one vague stock description. In a pub cellar, cask and keg are different handling categories, and the document often reflects that. A cask line may carry sediment and cellar-conditioning implications that do not apply to keg. A keg line may show a unique barcode or serial reference that becomes the cleanest way to resolve a short-delivery dispute later. If the spreadsheet drops that identifier, the bookkeeper is left matching by memory, not by evidence.

Container size also deserves its own column. It affects what can be compared across deliveries, how cellar teams think about throughput, and whether a later duty-related line looks plausible. ABV belongs alongside it for the same reason. Neither field is decorative. They are part of the logic of the supplier document.

Fulls and empties also need to stay separate. A delivery note that shows two full kegs dropped and one empty collected is recording two different movements, and pubs often lose that distinction when someone rekeys the document later as a single net quantity. For cellar control and deposit tracking, that is a mistake. The pub needs to know what entered stock and what left the site as an empty return.

Where the note carries extra operational detail, capture that in a controlled way rather than burying it in free text. A best-before date, a short-delivery mark, a swapped brand, or a handwritten shortage note can sit in a comment or exception column. The point is not to make the spreadsheet ornate. It is to preserve the exact details that explain why the supplier invoice or the cellar count may not look exactly like the original order.

This is also where messy paper stops being a cosmetic problem and becomes a bookkeeping one. Brewery notes are often signed in pen, corrected in the yard, or printed on thermal paper that fades fast. If the crossed-out quantity or handwritten empties count is not captured at the point of receipt, it may never make it into the books accurately.

Build a weekly cellar spreadsheet that survives month end

The best cellar delivery reconciliation template is a working control sheet, not a static archive. Each delivery should create one row per beer line or container movement, with enough detail to support three separate jobs from the same file: weekly cellar checking, later invoice validation, and month-end bookkeeping. In practice that means the sheet needs the operational columns from the note, plus a few control columns that make review possible, such as document status, shortage flag, deposit balance, and invoice matched yes or no.

One compact schema is enough for most pubs:

Column	Why it stays in the sheet
Delivery date, supplier, note number, invoice number	Ties the row back to the source document and later invoice
Beer line, keg barcode or cask ID, container size, ABV	Identifies exactly what arrived and preserves the duty-relevant fields
Fulls delivered, empties collected, short-delivery note	Shows stock movement as it actually happened in the cellar
Unit price, deposit, draught or SPR flag	Separates commercial value from refundable charges and pricing context
Best-before or shelf-life expiry, invoice matched, credit expected	Keeps the row useful for cellar review and month-end follow-up

A practical weekly routine looks like this. The delivery goes into the sheet the same day it is received. Any shortage, substitution, or damaged container is marked while the signed note is still in hand. Empties collected are logged against the same supplier visit rather than left for someone to remember later. When the brewery invoice arrives, the bookkeeper checks it back to the received-goods record instead of posting straight from the invoice total. That is exactly the discipline behind matching supplier invoices to delivery notes, but in a pub the received-goods side needs cellar detail rather than a generic warehouse line count.

It helps to think of the sheet in three layers. First come the source fields from the note itself. Second come the bookkeeping control fields, such as invoice matched, credit expected, or deposit cleared. Third come the review outputs, such as weekly beer purchases, open deposits, and unresolved discrepancies. That structure keeps the spreadsheet readable. The pub is not forcing stock notes, supplier disputes, and month-end controls into one crowded description column.

The sheet should also respect the way pubs actually buy. Brewery paperwork belongs in a wet-stock control file. Dry-stock and convenience purchases do not. If the same site is also dealing with snacks, soft drinks, or back-bar items from wholesalers, those can sit in a separate Booker and Bestway bookkeeping workflow or broader purchase log while the beer sheet stays focused on cellar movements and brewery-document logic.

Used well, the spreadsheet also shortens the conversation between operations and finance. The publican can see what was signed for. The bookkeeper can see what still needs matching or credit. Both are looking at the same row structure, which reduces the usual month-end problem of one person remembering the cellar reality and another person only seeing the supplier invoice total.

What matters is consistency. If every brewery delivery is entered with the same columns and the same row structure, week-end review becomes a quick control exercise rather than a reconstruction job. By month end, the sheet already shows what was delivered, what was short, what deposits are still outstanding, and which supplier documents have been matched back to source.

Keep keg deposits and empties out of beer cost

This is the accounting point that most pub-bookkeeping content skips. A keg or cask deposit line is not the same thing as the beer you intend to sell. If the brewery paperwork mixes the two on one document and the pub posts the whole total to purchases or COGS, gross margin is immediately distorted. The deposit is refundable when the container comes back. The beer is not.

On the buyer side, the clean treatment is to separate the deposit into its own balance-sheet bucket, usually a recoverable deposit asset or a dedicated clearing account, while the beer lines go to purchases or stock. In prose, the journal logic is straightforward:

• On delivery: post beer value to purchases or inventory, post the deposit line to the separate recoverable deposit balance, and credit the supplier for the full document total.
• On return or credit: when empties go back and the supplier issues a credit, reduce that deposit balance instead of netting the credit against beer cost.

That is the practical answer behind the search for a keg deposit accounting journal entry pub workflow. The exact account names vary by chart of accounts, but the principle does not. Do not expense a refundable container charge as if it were liquid in the keg.

The same logic helps when supplier statements are reviewed later. If deposits have been tracked separately all month, the pub can see which balances relate to containers still on site, which ones should have cleared on an empties return, and which ones need chasing because the credit has not appeared. If everything was posted to beer cost, that visibility disappears.

This is why the spreadsheet needs both a deposit column and an empties or return field. In real pub operations, deliveries and container returns rarely line up neatly on the same day. Deposits can sit on the books for weeks if empties are returned on the next run, on a partial collection, or after a disputed shortage is resolved. If the cellar sheet tracks that movement as it happens, month-end bookkeeping becomes a review of balances already visible in the data rather than an argument over what part of the supplier total was actually beer.

Sense-check draught duty, SPR, and tied-pub invoice lines

The pub is not calculating the brewery's Alcohol Duty return, but it still needs the supplier document to be reviewable. That is why ABV, container size, and any relief marker belong in the spreadsheet. According to HMRC's draught alcohol duty guidance, draught alcoholic products qualify for the reduced Alcohol Duty rate only if they are under 8.5% ABV and in containers of at least 20 litres that connect to a pump system or gas-pressurised drinks tap. For bookkeeping purposes, that makes ABV and container size control fields, not optional notes.

The aim is not to recreate HMRC calculations. It is to preserve enough detail that the reader can ask sensible questions when a supplier line looks odd. If a document shows draught treatment on a product outside those conditions, or if the packaging field is missing entirely, the bookkeeper has a reason to query the paperwork before it disappears into a month-end total. HMRC also updated the draught-duty guidance and rates on 1 February 2026, which is another reason not to hard-code old assumptions into a static template.

In practice, this means flagging the points that explain price or duty treatment without turning the sheet into a tax-return model. A simple yes or no field for draught-rate indicated, an SPR note, and a comments field for tied-house adjustments is usually enough. The value is that the line can be reviewed later by someone who did not physically receive the stock.

Small Producer Relief sits in the same category of useful document context. The pub is not claiming the relief itself, but a qualifying small brewer may reflect that relief in the way pricing or line descriptions appear on the invoice. Keeping an SPR flag or note column helps the bookkeeper explain price differences across suppliers without turning the sheet into a brewery-tax model.

Tied-pub paperwork needs the same caution. A discount or adjustment on a tied-house invoice may be part of the tenancy economics rather than an ordinary product-price cut, especially where SCORFA or related tied terms affect how the document is presented. The bookkeeping job is to preserve the line as shown, flag anything unusual, and check the tenancy paperwork or adviser guidance before recoding it as normal beer margin. If the issue is wholesaler legitimacy rather than line-level invoice interpretation, deal with that separately through AWRS URN verification for alcohol wholesalers.

Turn signed brewery paperwork into finance-usable rows

The hardest part of this workflow is usually not the spreadsheet design. It is getting the real delivery note into that structure while the evidence is still fresh. Brewery paperwork is signed in the yard, corrected at the cellar door, and sometimes printed on paper that fades before the month-end file is opened again. That is why capture discipline matters more than theory. If the pub records the same defined fields from the source document on receipt, the bookkeeping later becomes checking and posting rather than rekeying and guessing.

For teams that want to reduce manual entry, the useful requirement is not generic OCR. It is a repeatable extraction flow that preserves the financially important fields named above. That is the context in which tools that extract supplier paperwork into spreadsheets become useful. Invoice Data Extraction is one example of that model: users upload documents, describe the columns they want in a prompt, and receive structured output in Excel, CSV, or JSON. The product supports PDF and image files, allows custom field and line-item extraction, and returns source file and page references so a crossed-out quantity or unclear empties line can still be checked against the original document.

That still needs pub-specific judgment. The operator has to decide which columns define the brewery workflow, which shortages need a note, and how deposits are tracked. The tool's role is to return structured rows consistently from messy paperwork, not to replace the accounting decisions. If you want the broader mechanics of converting delivery notes to Excel, that article covers the generic document-conversion path. For a pub cellar, the important difference is that the output has to preserve keg or cask identifiers, ABV, container size, empties movement, and deposit lines well enough to support the books.

The practical setup is simple. Define the sheet columns once, use the same capture rule on every delivery, and review exceptions while the note is still in front of you. That avoids the usual drift where one week records keg barcodes, the next week skips them, and a later invoice dispute has to be resolved from incomplete rows. The better the pub standardizes its capture logic, the less month-end depends on whoever happens to remember what was scribbled on a delivery note three weeks earlier.

Once those fields are standardized and captured at receipt, the weekly close becomes lighter. The cellar sheet already shows what arrived, what went back, what still sits in deposits, and what needs to be matched when the invoice lands. That is the real win in brewery delivery note bookkeeping for UK pubs.