Ask Barform

Ask Barform is an AI assistant in the back office. Ask it, in Spanish or English, how to do something in Barform, or about your bar's own numbers, and it answers from Barform's help pages and your reports — saying which night or range it counted. It only reads: it never changes anything. This page covers how to ask, what it can and can't answer, how many questions you have each month, and what happens to your questions.

Ask a question

Who can do this: admins and managers.

1. In the back office, click Ask Barform at the bottom right of any page — on a phone it says Ask — or click Help in the sidebar. The panel opens on its Ask Barform tab, beside the page; on a phone it fills the screen.
2. Type your question the way you'd say it at the bar — "how many margaritas did we sell last night?" or "how do I give a new manager access?" — and press Enter. Before your first question you can also click one of the suggested questions.
3. Read the answer. While it works, the panel says what it's doing — "Searching the help pages…", "Looking it up…", "Checking the figures…" — and an answer with figures appears once its figures are checked.
4. To ask a follow-up, type in the same panel: it keeps the conversation. To start over on something else, click New chat above the conversation.

The conversation stays while you move between pages, even with the panel closed; reloading the page starts a new one, and so does switching to another bar. The panel's other tab, Help search, searches these help pages without the AI.

It answers in your back office's language — the Admin portal language in Settings › Venue — whatever language you type in, and it quotes the screens' labels the way your screens show them.

What an answer can carry

• Links to the parts of these help pages it used. They open in a new tab.
• A button that opens the screen it's talking about, such as Open Reports › Sales. It can open the screen already set up: a report on the nights it counted, Items sold searched for the product, the reservation book on the night, the schedule on the week.
• For numbers, a card with the figures, the night or range it counted with its hours — for example "Sun, Oct 11 · 6:00 AM – 5:59 AM" — and a link to the report they come from, such as See it in Reports › Items sold.

Rate an answer

Under an answer, click the thumbs up if it helped, or the thumbs down if it didn't. After a thumbs down you can say what was wrong and click Send note. Barform reads them to make the answers better.

What it can answer

It sees only what you could open yourself: the same role, plan and add-on rules as the screens.

A manager who asks about billing is told that Billing is for admins. Labor answers are totals only: when just one person with an hourly rate worked in the range, it leaves the total pay out — it would be that person's pay — and points you to Reports › Labor. On a plan without inventory, a question about recipes, pour costs, stock or waste gets the answer that they come with the plans with inventory, and that an admin can change plan in Settings › Billing. At a bar that doesn't use the safe, a question about the safe gets the answer that your bar doesn't use it in Barform and that an admin can turn it on in Settings › Venue › iPads and service, with a button to that page.

When it can't look a figure up, it says so. Plenty of what the back office shows is on screens it can't read from the panel. Ask for one of those figures and it tells you it can't look that one up from here, gives you the closest figures it can, and offers the screen that shows it. It says Barform doesn't have something only when Barform really doesn't record it (see What it won't do).

Questions to try

Ask the way you'd say it. A few that work well:

• "What's our average pour cost?" or "Which drinks have the highest pour cost?"
• "Which drinks made us the most money last month?"
• "Was the till short last week?"
• "Who approved the drawer openings with no sale this week?"
• "How much should be in the safe?" or "When was the safe last counted, and did it match?" (at a bar that uses the safe)
• "How much do customers owe us on their accounts?"
• "How much did we lose to waste this month, and why?"
• "Which night of the week is our busiest?"
• "How much did we last pay for a bottle of blanco tequila?"

Pour cost and gross profit

• The average pour cost is the plain average of each drink's pour cost, worked out as Menu › Products works it out, at today's item costs, to one decimal. It comes overall and by category, with how many drinks fall in each of the screen's colour bands: 20% or less, 21% to 30%, and over 30%.
• A drink is left out of the average, and named, when an ingredient of its recipe has no cost on file, its recipe has no ingredients yet, or it has no menu price — so no average reads better than the truth. The answer names the stock items with no cost: setting their costs in Inventory › Items brings those drinks in. Products with no recipe are counted, not averaged.
• For a range of nights it also looks at what sold, as Reports › Items sold counts it. Recipe cost is how many sold × the drink's cost per serving today, with the recipe as written (a spirit a guest swapped in is costed as the house pour). Pour cost on sales is the recipe cost ÷ the sales. Gross profit is the sales − the recipe cost: before staff, rent, card fees or any other cost. It says whether those sales include VAT: they do when your menu prices include it.

Drawers, the safe, accounts and waste

• Drawers count on the night they were started, as Reports › Shift closes (Z) files them. The answer gives the cash and card differences, which a manager explained — quoting the manager's note as they wrote it — and how many Today still lists as not explained; the opening counts (matched, short, over, counted late or skipped); cash in and out by reason; each opening with no sale, with the manager who approved it and who asked for it when that was someone else (recorded with Barform 1.2.1 or later on the iPad); and the voided payments, with their reasons and who took and voided them.
• The safe, at a bar that uses it, is always right now: there's no range to ask about. The answer gives what should be in it, worked out as Reports › Safe works it out; when it was last counted, by whom and how that count compared — and, for a difference, whether a manager explained it (quoting the note as they wrote it) or Today still lists it; what the closes took out since, and the money in and out, including cash moved between the drawer and the safe; and the entries since that count, the newest 30, with their reasons ("To the drawer" and "From the drawer" for that cash). If a close didn't record what it left in the drawer, it says the figure may be off and to count the safe. Before the first count, it says the safe hasn't been counted yet.
• Customer accounts come as totals and counts only. Ask who owes the most and you get the amount, never the name: names, contacts and notes stay on Customer accounts. For what was charged to accounts or collected on them over some nights, ask about income.
• Waste is valued at each item's cost when the loss was recorded, and a loss counts on the night it was recorded. Inventory › Waste shows one calendar month at a time: ask about a whole month to get that page's figures exactly.

What it won't do

• Change anything. It can't void, refund, change a price, edit staff, change your plan or message a guest. Its buttons only open screens: saving is still yours, on the screen.
• Repeat private details, even to an admin: anyone's pay rate or individual pay, PINs, schedule links, guests' names, phone numbers, emails, notes and replies, and who holds a customer account. It points you to the screen instead.
• Give one person's hours or pay. Labor answers are totals.
• Look at another bar. It sees only the bar open in the back office. To ask about another one, switch to it at the top of the sidebar first: that starts a new chat, with that bar's own count of questions.
• Give legal, tax or labor-law advice. It suggests your accountant or lawyer, and access@barformpos.com for anything about Barform itself.
• Answer what Barform doesn't record, such as card fees, sales on delivery apps that weren't rung up on the iPad, or your rent and other bills — so it can't give your bar's overall profit. It says so, and tells you what Barform does show: sales, each drink's recipe cost and gross profit, labor and waste.
• Wander off-topic. It says in one line what it's for.

If these help pages don't cover your question, it says so and points you to help search (see First steps) and to access@barformpos.com.

How it counts nights

Every answer with figures says which night or range it counted, with the hours, and counts the way your reports do:

• A night runs from your service time to the same time the next day. The service time is set in Settings › Hours & scheduling. With a 6:00 AM service time, a tab opened at 1:30 AM on Saturday counts on Friday night.
• "Tonight" and "last night" follow Today. While the bar is in service — a drawer has been open for less than 20 hours, or your opening hours say you're open — tonight is the night in progress, with its figures so far (what Today shows as "Tonight so far"), and last night is the night before. Outside service, last night is your most recent night with sales: the one Today shows as "Last service".
• "Yesterday", "this week", "last month" and the like become exact dates in your venue's time zone, with weeks starting on your week start. The card shows the dates it used.
• Sales and items sold count on the night the tab was opened; income counts on the day the money arrived — the same rules as Today, Sales, Items sold and Income.
• Ask about two weeks or more and it also adds your nights up by day of the week: each weekday's net sales and bills, and its net sales per night that sold. Ask about more than a month and it names your five best nights.
• It doesn't add up figures itself, and every figure is checked. The figures come from the same reports you see, so the report the card links to shows the same numbers; a total or an average it gives, such as the menu's average pour cost or sales by day of the week, is worked out by Barform, not by the AI. If an answer quotes a figure your reports didn't give, the panel doesn't show that answer: it shows the figures straight from your reports, with "I couldn't match every figure in my answer to your reports, so here they are straight from them."

The full rules are in How each number is counted.

Your questions this month

Ask Barform comes with every plan: 150 questions a month for each bar are included.

• The panel shows how many your bar has used, such as "12 of 150 this month". Everyone at the bar shares the count; each bar you run has its own.
• Past 150 it keeps answering, up to 300, and the counter reads like "160 this month · 150 included". After the 300th question it stops until the next month starts: "Your bar has asked 300 questions this month, the most Ask Barform answers in a month. It's back on November 1. Help search still works."
• Each person can ask up to 30 questions an hour, in all their bars together. After that: "You've asked 30 questions in the last hour. Try again in 12 min."
• A conversation holds up to 20 questions. Then click New chat to keep asking.
• A demo bar can ask 10 questions (see Try it on a demo bar).

When it can't answer

• If Barform switches Ask Barform off, its button and its tab disappear and the panel is help search alone. A panel that was already open says "Ask Barform is switched off right now. Help search still works."
• If it can't reach the AI that writes its answers, the panel says "Ask Barform isn't available right now. Try again in a minute, or search the help pages." Click Search the help pages to switch to help search.
• If an answer takes too long, it stops: "That took too long, so I stopped. Try again in a minute, or search the help pages."

Your data

• Your question, the conversation so far and what it looks up — your figures, staff names where a report shows them (who counted a drawer or the safe, who approved a no-sale) and, for drawers and the safe, the explanations and reasons your team typed beside them — go to our AI provider only so it can write the answer. Its terms for business customers don't let it train on them.
• Anyone's pay rate or pay, PINs, schedule links, guests' names, contact details, notes and replies, and the names, contacts and notes on customer accounts never reach it — nor the Closing note typed at a close, the note typed with a loss, or the note typed with a safe count or a money in or out.
• Barform keeps chats for 90 days to check the answers, then deletes them.

The details are on the privacy page.

Try it on a demo bar

You can try Ask Barform without an account, in a demo bar of your own with a week of made-up sales. Open app.barformpos.com/demo?lang=en for a demo bar in English, or app.barformpos.com/demo for one in Spanish. Its back office, and Ask Barform's answers, are in that language. Opening the link again within a few hours brings back the same demo bar, in the language it was made in.

• A demo bar can ask 10 questions.
• Demo bars share Barform's budget for them with the Ask Barform on these help pages: US$8 a day and US$80 a month, on Mexico City time. When it's used up, the demo bar's panel says when Ask Barform is back: "Ask Barform has answered all it can on demo bars for now. It's back on October 13. Help search still works."

Ask Barform on the help pages

These help pages, and barformpos.com, have an Ask Barform button of their own, at the bottom right. Anyone can use it, without signing in.

• It answers from these help pages and the website only. It can't see any bar's data, yours included: for your numbers, ask in the back office.
• Ask about prices, a trial or a demo, and it offers the waitlist form under its answer.
• Don't type personal or payment details into it. If you type a phone number or an email, it doesn't send the question and offers the waitlist form instead.
• A question can be up to 500 characters, and a conversation holds 8 questions: the next one starts a new conversation.
• Each connection can ask 10 questions in 10 minutes and 30 a day. Past that it says "That's a lot of questions for now. Try again later, or search the help pages."
• It shares its budget with the demo bars. When it's paused, or has answered all it can for now, it says so: search the help pages instead.
• Chats are kept for 90 days, then deleted.

Related

• First steps
• How each number is counted
• Items sold
• Closing the day
• Plans and billing