Bar tabs, happy hour, and age verification: an operational guide

Bars break generic POS software in three specific places: open tabs, time-based pricing, and age rules. Each one is manageable on its own; together they decide whether service is fast at 11pm. This is how bar POS software should handle them.

The tab lifecycle

A tab is a long-lived order attached to a person, not a table. The lifecycle has four moments worth designing carefully:

• Open. Name or card reference attached, fast enough to do while pouring.
• Add. Repeat rounds should take one tap from the tab, not a new order flow.
• Transfer. Tabs move between staff at shift change and between tables when a group relocates.
• Close. Split by item or by amount, with each split settling its own tender.

The transfer step is the one most systems get wrong. If a tab belongs to the bartender who opened it, the 10pm shift change turns into a queue of forced closures.

Happy hour is a pricing rule, not a discount

Time-window pricing should apply automatically based on when the item is rung, and it should be visible on the ticket as the price that applied — not as a manual discount someone remembered to add. Two consequences follow: staff cannot forget it, and you can report on happy hour revenue separately from genuine discounting.

Decide the boundary rule explicitly. If a round is rung at 19:59 and another at 20:01, the second is full price. Most disputes come from teams that never agreed whether the rule follows the order open time or the item time.

Age verification: hide, do not block

Blocking an alcohol item at payment is the worst possible moment to discover a problem — the drink is poured and the customer is at the counter. Prompt at the point the item is added, and where a country profile prohibits alcohol sales, hide the items entirely rather than surfacing them and refusing later.

Legal drinking age differs across the markets we support, and it is a country profile setting, not a global constant. Dry-country profiles behave differently again: no alcohol catalog, no age prompt, no confusion for staff who never see the category. Check your market on the areas served pages.

Drinks belong on their own card

If drinks share a kitchen card with food, either the bar pours early and drinks sit, or it waits and the table waits. Route drinks to a bar card on the kitchen display system so the bar sequences its own queue.

Pour accuracy and stock

Bottle-level variance is where bar margin quietly disappears. Even without automated pour measurement, recording sales at the pour size you actually serve — rather than one generic "spirit" SKU — gives you a variance number worth investigating. Vague catalogs produce vague stock, and vague stock hides everything.

Tax and tender

Mixed food and drink checks often carry different tax treatment. Keep that decision in the tax profile rather than in the bartender's head; see GST and VAT POS for how country profiles apply.