How Barform works
The iPad and the back office, who does what, and the words used across Barform — service nights, checks and bills, comps and voids, 86 and wells.
On this page
Barform has two parts: the iPad app your staff use during service, and the back office, the website where owners and managers set things up and read the reports. This page explains how the two fit together and the words you'll meet on every other page.
The iPad and the back office
The iPad app (Barform POS) is where service happens: the floor, tabs, orders, payments, the cash drawer, the time clock and closing the day. Each iPad is paired to your venue once. After that it opens on a PIN pad, and everyone signs in with their own four-digit PIN, so everything they ring up, charge or approve is recorded under their name.
The back office is the website at app.barformpos.com. Admins and managers sign in there with their email to build the menu, lay out the floor, add staff, change settings and read the reports. The back office doesn't take payments, and nothing prints from it.
The two keep in step by themselves: menu changes reach every iPad within seconds, and most settings reach an iPad the next time someone signs in on it.
To get going, see First steps and Pair and manage iPads.
Roles
Each person on your staff has one role. It decides where they can sign in and what they can do.
| Role | On the iPad | In the back office |
|---|---|---|
| Admin | Everything. Approves their own voids, discounts, comps and 86. Closes the day. | Everything, including staff, venue settings, hours, import and billing. |
| Manager | The same as an admin. | Everything except adding and editing staff and the admin-only settings (Venue, Hours & scheduling, Reservations, Import, Billing, Your bars). Managers can view the venue settings. |
| Bartender, Server, Barback | Tables, orders, payments, customer accounts, waste and counts. A manager approves some actions. | No access. |
- Bartenders, servers and barbacks can do exactly the same things. The role is a label on the staff list, on the iPad and in the Labor report.
- When someone who isn't an admin or manager tries a manager action on the iPad — voiding a line that was already sent, a discount, a comp, marking a product out of stock (86), correcting a payment — the iPad asks for a manager's PIN, and any admin or manager types theirs on that iPad to approve it. A signed-in admin or manager approves their own actions. Some of these approvals can be switched off in Venue settings.
- Everyone except admins is asked to clock in when they sign in on the iPad.
More in Staff and roles.
The service night
Bars trade past midnight, so Barform doesn't end the day at midnight. A service day — a night — runs from your service-day start to the same time the next day. With a 6:00 AM start, which is what a new bar starts with, a drink sold at 1:00 AM on Saturday belongs to Friday night. You can change the start in Settings › Hours & scheduling › Service time.
There are two rules, depending on the report:
- Today and Sales count a sale on the night its tab was opened, whenever it was paid. A tab opened on Friday at 11:00 PM and paid on Saturday afternoon is Friday's sale.
- Income counts money on the day it was taken. That's the accountant's view: VAT is due when you're paid.
So the same dates can show different totals on Today and on Income — for example when a tab is paid on a later night than it was opened, or when a customer pays their account. Both are right; they answer different questions. See Today and Income.
Checks, bills, parties and guests
- A check, or tab, is one order — a table, a seat group or a guest at the bar — from the moment it's opened until it's paid. On the iPad every tab sits on a table of the floor plan; at the bar, that's a bar stool on the plan.
- A bill, in the reports, is one payment taken. A check paid in two parts is two bills.
- A party is a check that sold something, and guests are the guest counts on those checks. A check with no guest count counts as one guest.
Comps, voids and voided payments
There are three different ways of taking something back:
- Comp — you give a drink, or the whole check, away on purpose. It was poured, so it comes off stock, and its value is recorded as a comp. A manager can undo a comp made by mistake while the check is open. See Discounts and comps.
- Void — you take a line off the check because it shouldn't be there, such as the wrong drink or one the guest sent back. Nothing comes off stock for it. Taking a line off before it's sent to the bar is recorded as a void too. See Taking orders.
- Voiding a payment — you take back a payment that was recorded wrongly: rung by mistake, on the wrong tender or table, or twice. The check's balance comes back so it can be charged correctly, and a paid check reopens on its table. It always needs a manager. See Payment corrections.
Warning
Voiding a card payment in Barform doesn't refund the card. Void the charge on the card terminal too, or the guest pays twice. The one exception is a wrong credit or debit pick: the payment is charged again in Barform with the right type, and the terminal is left alone (see Taking payment).
Customer accounts
A customer account is a named account you can charge a check to, for the customer to pay later — a regular or a partner, for example. On the iPad's payment screen it's House Account; the screens that manage accounts say Customer accounts. A check charged to an account becomes a sale only when the account pays for it, and it counts on the night the tab was opened. Money paid into accounts shows on Today as Collected on accounts. See Customer accounts.
Out of stock (86)
"86" is bar talk for sold out. A product that's 86'd can't be rung up until someone marks it available again. Its tile stays where it is, dimmed with an 86 badge, and the change reaches every iPad within seconds.
- On the iPad: ··· More › Out of stock (86), or press and hold the product's tile. Staff need a manager's PIN; a signed-in admin or manager changes it directly.
- In the back office: the product's Available switch in Menu › Products.
Wells and swaps
On plans that include inventory, each drink can have a recipe, and paying a check takes its recipe off stock.
- A well is your house pour for one kind of spirit — the tequila or the gin you pour when a guest doesn't ask for a brand. Recipe lines can follow a well: change the well's bottle once, and every drink that follows it pours the new bottle, with its cost updated.
- A swap is a recipe line marked Swapped by a modifier group. When the guest picks a brand from that group, the chosen bottle comes off stock instead of the recipe's own, in the same quantity.
See Recipes and wells.