The relief manager handover: never hand over the keys without a signed count

A relief manager takes your keys, your cellar, your till and your reputation, sometimes with a day's notice. Holidays, illness, a family emergency, or a pubco holding a site between tenants. It mostly works, because the people doing it are mostly good. But when you come back and the next stocktake is down £400, the argument that follows has no referee. The stock result covers weeks when two different people ran the bar, and without a count at the handover, any gap belongs to whoever can't prove otherwise. Which is both of you.

The fix costs one hour twice. A proper count when the relief walks in, the same count when they walk out, and one page of paper in between. Here's how to do it so it protects them as much as you.

Who relief managers actually are

One of the longest-running agencies in the trade requires its relief managers and stewards to be ex-licensees holding their own Personal Licence, carrying certificates for food hygiene, health and safety and first aid, and lodging a security deposit before they're placed. These are people who have run their own pubs and know exactly what an unexplained stock gap does to a reputation. That's worth understanding, because a good relief doesn't resist a handover count. They insist on one. It's their protection too: a signed opening figure is the only thing standing between them and inheriting your last month's problems.

If a relief, agency or otherwise, waves the count away as unnecessary fuss, that tells you something useful before you've handed over a single key.

The day-one count

Do it together, the morning of the handover, before the doors open if you can manage it. Not the night before, because a Friday session between the count and the keys makes the number worthless.

Count everything at cost, the same way you'd do a normal full stocktake: cellar, shelves, fridges, spirits weighed or in honest tenths, kegs and casks by weight or dipstick rather than a guess at what's left. Count the float and the safe together while you're at it. Then both of you sign the total, with the detail behind it saved somewhere you can both see. An hour, maybe less if your product library is already set up in software and the maths does itself. If you've never timed one, here's what a count takes.

That signed number does one simple thing: it splits time in two. Everything before it is yours. Everything after it, until the closing count, happened on the relief's watch. No count, no split, and the eventual variance is a rope with no knot to hold onto.

The one-page handover sheet

The count is the number. The sheet is everything else the relief needs so the number stays clean. Mine would have, in this order:

• Opening stock value and where the count detail lives, signed by both.
• Float and safe figures, signed by both.
• Delivery days and standing orders, and the instruction to check every delivery at the door before signing, because a short delivery accepted blind lands in the relief's period through no fault of theirs.
• When the lines were last cleaned and when they're next due, because line cleaning bins real pints and the relief needs to log them like you would.
• The wastage log and where it lives. If you don't keep one, start before you leave.
• Till quirks: the zero-price buttons, what a replaced drink gets rung as, and the prepaid pints pot if you run one, because a relief who doesn't know about "one in the pump" will hand honoured pints over the bar all fortnight with no idea they need recording.
• The incident book, which the relief must keep up. Licence conditions don't take holidays because you did.

Most of that already exists in your head. The point of the sheet is that your head is about to be on a beach.

While you're away: don't make it a black box

A fortnight with no numbers is a fortnight of hoping. It doesn't need to be. Ask the relief to do a five-minute daily check on your handful of fastest lines, counting them and comparing movement against the till, the same discipline as a line check. If your stock system is software rather than a binder, give the relief their own login rather than your password, and you can see the counts from wherever you are. StockTap handles that with team roles, and the counts the relief enters sit in the same reports you'll use for the closing number. A relief who records a split cask and logs the waste on the day has protected both of you; one who couldn't record it anywhere has protected neither.

The comeback count

Same method, same thoroughness, within a day of getting back, done together if the relief can stay for it. Value it at cost, put it next to the opening figure, add purchases in the period, take the till's wet sales, and you've got a GP for the relief period by itself. Then read it the way you'd read any result, with the usual causes checked before anyone's character: was waste logged, were deliveries checked, did the prepaid pot get counted, were the part bottles weighed both times or estimated both times.

If the period result is fine, say so, in writing, and thank them. Reliefs live on references and a licensee who confirms a clean stock result is giving them something they can use. If there's a gap, you now have a two-week window, a signed start point, daily line checks and a wastage log to investigate with, instead of a month of mixed responsibility and a bad feeling. That conversation stays factual because the paperwork makes it factual.

Relief cover is not a change of tenancy

Worth keeping separate: when a tenancy actually changes hands, stock is bought and sold at an agreed valuation, and independent valuers get involved because money changes hands on the number. The stocktaking firms call these transfer valuations, and the ingoing stocktake guide covers that day in detail. A relief placement transfers custody, not ownership, so you don't need a paid valuer standing between you. You need the same count done twice by the same rules, and signatures. If either side wants an independent stocktaker for a long placement, that's money well spent for peace of mind, but for a routine fortnight, counting together does the job.

The honest limits

A one-night or weekend cover doesn't need the full treatment: count the float, note the kegs on, check the fridges by eye, and accept that a couple of days of variance is inside the noise of any count anyway. The full opening-and-closing routine earns its keep from about a week upwards, and becomes non-negotiable for anything measured in weeks. And on cost: relief agencies don't publish rate cards, rates are quoted per placement, so I won't invent a day rate here. Whatever you're paying, it's enough that an hour of counting to protect the arrangement is cheap by comparison.

Common questions

Do I need an independent stocktaker for a relief handover?

Not for a routine placement. Two people counting together, signing the result, is proportionate. For a placement running months, or where the site is between tenants and a pubco is involved, an independent count at each end is worth the fee. The audit vs stocktake guide explains the difference in whose number it is.

Who pays for stock loss during a relief period?

Whatever your agreement with the relief or their agency says, which is exactly why the opening and closing counts matter: they turn "the stock's down and it's somewhere in the last six weeks" into a specific period with a specific custodian. Agree the counting arrangement in writing before the placement starts, not after a gap appears.

What if the relief refuses a handover count?

Treat it as the warning it is. Established reliefs are ex-licensees; they know what the count is for and that it protects them. Reluctance to have a signed opening number is a reason to ring the agency back.

Can the relief just use my stock system while I'm away?

Yes, and they should, with their own login rather than your credentials, so the record shows who counted what. In StockTap that's a team invite with a role, and it costs nothing extra. Sharing one login works until the day you need to know which of you recorded something, which is the one day it matters.