Written by: JJ Tan, Founder, Jelly
Key Takeaways
- UK pub margins are under pressure in 2026, with wet-led pubs retaining just 3p profit per £1 spent by customers amid rising NI, energy, and supplier costs.
- A daily cost report bridges EPOS sales data and monthly P&L, surfacing problems like wastage, price creep, or labour overspend within days rather than weeks.
- The free template tracks sales, COGS, gross profit, labour, utilities, rent, and overheads, with 2026 benchmarks for wet-led, food-led, and mixed venues.
- Prime cost (COGS + labour) should stay below 60% of sales, and variances above this threshold require immediate investigation to protect net profit.
- Automate your daily cost report with Jelly to remove manual entry, receive real-time GP updates, and flag supplier price changes instantly.
What A Daily Cost Report Covers And Why It Matters
A daily cost report captures every material financial movement in your venue on a given trading day. It records sales by category, cost of goods received, labour, and fixed-cost allocations. The report produces a daily gross profit figure and flags variances before they compound.
Waiting for a monthly accountant’s report means a supplier price increase, a wastage spike, or a labour overspend can run unchecked for 30 days before you see it. SmartPubTools’ 2026 hospitality cost guide estimates that most pubs lose 2–5% of stock value to spoilage, theft, and inaccurate counting. A daily report surfaces these losses within days rather than at month-end.
See how Jelly can automate your daily cost report in a live demo.
The Free Template: What To Track On Your Bar Daily Cost Report
The table below shows a core daily cost report structure with example figures for a UK pub turning over approximately £1,200 per day net of VAT. All figures must be recorded net of VAT. SmartPubTools notes that calculating GP% on VAT-inclusive revenue overstates gross profit by approximately 17%.
| Category | Example Figure (£) | Target % of Sales | Benchmark Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wet Sales | 720 | — | — |
| Dry Sales | 120 | — | — |
| Food Sales | 360 | — | — |
| Total Sales | 1,200 | 100% | — |
| Wet COGS | 202 | 25–30% | Teal Farm guide |
| Dry COGS | 38 | 28–35% | SmartPubTools |
| Food COGS | 115 | 30–35% | Hops |
| Total COGS | 355 | 28–35% | SmartPubTools |
| Gross Profit | 845 | 65–72% | SmartPubTools |
| Labour (incl. NI & pension) | 300 | 25–30% | SmartPubTools |
| Utilities (daily average) | 65 | 4–8% | SmartPubTools |
| Rent & Rates (daily average) | 110 | 8–12% | SmartPubTools |
| Overheads (daily average) | 60 | 5–25% | OrangeJelly |
| Net Profit | 310 | 8–15% | SmartPubTools |
Adapting The Template For Different Pub Formats
The core template structure works across venue types. The emphasis shifts by format so you focus on the numbers that move your profit most.
- Wet-Led Pubs. Wet GP% is the primary daily metric, and keg wastage has a direct impact on it. The difference between 5% and 8% wastage on a premium cask ale can determine whether that line is worth stocking, so monitor wastage line by line. Track drink promotions separately so their margin impact stays visible instead of buried in blended COGS.
- Food-Led Venues. Food COGS is the critical daily figure, supported by tight control of kitchen wastage. Track menu profitability by dish category. Three factors silently erode food GP: supplier price creep, portion drift, and wastage, and most kitchens run 5–15% wastage without building it into pricing.
- Mixed Venues. Track wet and food COGS separately and combined to keep the picture clear. A blended COGS figure can hide a food cost problem that a strong wet margin is subsidising, so keep the categories distinct in your daily report.
How To Fill Out Your Daily Cost Report: Step-By-Step
Complete the report at the same time each day, with end of trading as the most reliable cut-off. The process takes 20–30 minutes manually, which adds up to 15–20 hours of financial tracking each month across a typical pub operation, according to SmartPubTools. Jelly automates invoice scanning and cost tracking to remove that burden.
- Record daily sales from your EPOS. Split wet, dry, and food. Use net-of-VAT figures throughout. HMRC requires VAT-registered businesses to keep records of daily takings such as till rolls, so your EPOS Z-report is both an operational and a compliance document.
- Record deliveries and invoices received. Enter line-item costs as they arrive. Cross-reference delivery notes against invoices before approving payment, because suppliers make mistakes and unchecked deliveries are a common source of cost leakage.
- Calculate COGS. Use the formula opening stock plus deliveries minus closing stock. Hops warns that calculating COGS from purchase invoices alone can misstate GP by 3–4 percentage points. If daily stock takes are impractical, use estimates and reconcile with a full count weekly.
- Calculate gross profit. Subtract total COGS from total sales. Express the result as a percentage of sales for comparison against benchmarks.
- Record labour hours and costs. Include employer National Insurance and pension contributions. SmartPubTools notes these on-costs add roughly 23–25% on top of gross wages, so a staff member on £25,000 gross costs closer to £30,000 in total.
- Add fixed costs as daily averages. Divide monthly rent, utilities, insurance, and rates by the number of trading days in the month. Typical combined energy spend for a UK pub runs £650–£4,800 per month depending on size and format.
- Calculate net profit. Subtract labour, utilities, rent and rates, and overheads from gross profit. Record the figure and the percentage of sales.
2026 Benchmarks: What Strong Performance Looks Like For UK Pubs
Benchmarks act as reference points rather than fixed targets. SmartPubTools advises that the real benchmark is your own trend over time. A GP% dropping three points over eight weeks warrants investigation regardless of where it sits relative to industry averages.
| Metric | Wet-Led Pub | Food-Led Pub | Mixed Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wet GP% | 68–72% | 70–75% | 55–65% |
| Food GP% | N/A or 65–70% | 65–72% | 65–70% |
| Labour % of Sales | 28–32% | 20–25% | 23–27% |
| Prime Cost (COGS + Labour) | Under 60% of sales | ||
| Monthly Energy Spend | £650–£4,800 depending on size and format | ||
Prime cost, which is COGS plus labour as a percentage of sales, is the single most useful diagnostic figure in your daily report. The 60% ceiling exists because rent, utilities, insurance, marketing, repairs, and profit must all come from the remaining 40% of sales. Above 65%, the arithmetic stops working in most rent situations. When your numbers drift beyond these benchmarks, the daily report becomes a diagnostic tool. The following thresholds provide a practical framework for acting on variances.
How To Act On Variances: Troubleshooting Your Daily Report
A daily report delivers value when variances trigger clear action. Use these thresholds as a starting checklist.
- High COGS. Check deliveries against invoices line by line. Review portion control in the kitchen. Investigate wastage. Draught beer wastage typically runs 4–8% and is frequently untracked.
- Supplier price creep. SmartPubTools recommends auditing suppliers and pricing if any COGS category drifts more than three percentage points above target for two consecutive weeks. Jelly’s Price Alert feature flags every supplier price change automatically, giving you the data to challenge increases and claim credit notes.
- High labour %. Audit the schedule against covers rather than only against till figures. BarMagazine identifies over-scheduling during quiet periods as one of the three most common causes of labour overspend. If three of the last four Friday nights ran labour above target, treat the issue as structural and audit the rota in detail.
- Till discrepancies. SmartPubTools advises that a discrepancy under £5 is rounding error, £5–£25 warrants a recount and staff inquiry, and over £25 is serious and requires full investigation. A consistent pattern of small shortages is as problematic as a single large one.
How To Automate Your Daily Cost Report With Jelly
The template and method above work with a spreadsheet. The limitation of spreadsheets is time and accuracy, because manual invoice entry, stock reconciliation, and GP calculations are slow and prone to transcription errors. Those tasks account for the 15–20 hours of monthly admin mentioned earlier.
Jelly automates the entire flow. Invoices are scanned automatically, with every line item captured without manual data entry. Real-time GP margins update the moment a new invoice arrives. The Price Alert feature flags every supplier price increase or decrease, so you can act on cost creep in the same week it happens instead of discovering it at month-end. Jelly integrates natively with Square, EPOS Now, Lightspeed, and Toast to pull live sales data, and it pushes digitised invoices directly into Xero for seamless bookkeeping.
Jelly users save 10–20 hours of admin monthly and add an average of 2 percentage points to gross margins. One operator improved gross profit from 65% to 72% within 12 weeks on approximately £500,000 in revenue. Stuart Noble, Head Chef at Cairn Lodge Hotel, reported slashing food costs by 5% in a month after implementing Jelly’s real-time dish costing.
Watch Jelly build your daily cost report for you in a personalised demo.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Does It Cost To Run A Bar In The UK Per Day?
For a typical community pub turning over around £1,200 per day net of VAT, total daily operating costs vary widely. The figure includes COGS, labour, utilities, rent, rates, and overheads, and depends on location, size, format, and whether the venue is tied or free-of-tie. Energy alone ranges from £22 to £160 per day depending on venue size and whether the site has a commercial kitchen. The most reliable way to understand your own daily cost baseline is to complete a daily cost report consistently for four weeks and calculate your own averages.
What Is A Good Gross Profit Margin For A UK Pub?
For wet-led pubs, a drinks GP% of 65–72% is the standard benchmark, with food-led venues targeting 65–72% on food and 70–75% on drinks. Premium bars and gastropubs can achieve higher blended GPs. The more useful measure is prime cost, which is COGS plus labour as a percentage of sales, and this should stay below 60% to leave sufficient margin for rent, utilities, and net profit. A pub running 70% GP on drinks with 35% labour and 20% rent retains only 15% to cover everything else, which shows why GP% alone gives an incomplete picture.
How Do I Calculate Prime Cost For My Pub?
Prime cost is calculated as total COGS plus total labour cost, divided by total sales, then multiplied by 100. Total COGS must use the stock formula of opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock rather than invoice totals alone. Total labour cost must include gross wages, employer National Insurance contributions, auto-enrolment pension contributions, and any contractor or agency costs. Using gross wages only understates true labour cost by 15–20% and produces a misleadingly low prime cost figure.
Do I Need To Do A Daily Stock Take To Complete The Report?
A full daily stock take is not required for the daily cost report to be useful. For wet stock, estimates based on deliveries and known opening stock are sufficient for daily tracking, provided a full physical count is completed weekly to reconcile. High-value draught lines such as Guinness, premium spirits, and house wine benefit from daily counts because a single percentage point of waste on draught beer can equate to £4,000–£6,000 per year in a typical pub. Weekly stock takes are the minimum recommended frequency for accurate GP calculation, and monthly counts are too infrequent to catch problems before they compound.
Can I Use This Template For A Food-Led Pub?
This template structure applies to any UK pub or bar format. For food-led venues, weight the COGS section towards food categories and track food GP% as the primary daily metric. Add a kitchen wastage line to capture spoilage and trim waste separately from COGS. Labour should be split between front-of-house and kitchen where possible, because kitchen labour is largely fixed and behaves differently from bar labour when covers fluctuate. The benchmark targets shift, with food-led venues targeting 20–25% labour rather than the 28–32% that wet-led pubs can sustain, but the report structure and the daily discipline remain identical.
Start Your Daily Cost Report Today
A daily cost report is the fastest operational tool available for catching margin erosion before it compounds. The template above, completed consistently at the same time each trading day, gives you a real-time view of your venue’s financial health that a monthly accountant’s report cannot match.
Start with the template today. When you are ready to remove the manual burden with automated invoice scanning, live GP margins, supplier price alerts, and POS integration in one platform, book a Jelly demo tailored to your venue.