Stocktake chargeback: how to dispute it, and the two I've had reversed

To dispute a stocktake chargeback, argue about an input, not the total. Query it on the day, in writing, before anything is signed, then put a document on the table that isn't your opinion: a till fault reference, a delivery note in the wrong period, your own line checks. I've had two reversed, and the second only came off once I'd found the paperwork.

I run a pub in Washington, Tyne and Wear. Seventeen staff, a tied agreement, and five liquor audits with Venners since December. The net results were +£193, +£65, +£51, −£756 and +£13.

For scale, three of those five came in at a tenth of one per cent of revenue or less. £65 on £62,596 is 0.10%, £51 on £73,847 is 0.07%, £13 on £76,236 is 0.02%, and the +£193 was 0.27% on £70,279. So four of the five were inside three tenths of one per cent. Four out of five went my way. The one that didn’t cost more than the other four made put together.

I’ve had two figures reversed. Neither of them happened because I argued harder or shouted louder, and I’ve tried both. They happened because I had something to put on the table that wasn’t my own opinion.

What a stocktake chargeback actually is

The stocktaker values your opening stock, adds your deliveries, values your closing stock, works out what should have sold at your selling prices, and compares that to what your till says you sold. The gap is your variance. If the gap is against you and it’s beyond whatever tolerance your agreement allows, it can be charged to you, as a debit on your account, or held over and settled later, or simply sat there as a number that follows you around.

The thing worth holding on to is this. That figure is not a finding. It’s a calculation with about ten inputs in it, and any one of those inputs can be wrong. Wrong selling price on file. A delivery counted in the wrong period. A cellar line counted short. A till that wasn’t recording. The report prints one clean number at the bottom and everybody in the room treats that number as the truth, including, for a long time, me.

The first one: the stocktaker wouldn’t re-check a figure I’d queried

I queried a closing count on one line. I thought it was out and I said so while he was still on site. He wouldn’t go back down to the cellar. The count was the count, the report was done, and that was that.

So I stopped arguing about the beer and rang my area manager instead. I told him what had happened: I’d queried the number on the day, while the stocktaker was still in the building, and he wouldn’t go back and re-check it. The figure came off.

I want to be straight about what that was and what it wasn’t. It was not a formal written dispute. I didn’t quote a clause at anybody, I didn’t put it in an email at the time, and I hadn’t read a word of my agreement before I picked the phone up. I raised it verbally on the day and then I told my AOM, and he took my word for it.

Which is the actual lesson, and it isn’t the flattering one. It worked because I flagged it while the stocktaker was still on site and because I’ve got an area manager who knows me and knew I wasn’t at it. Take either of those away and I don’t think it comes off. If I’d waited a fortnight and then complained, I’d have been a bloke who didn’t like his number.

So the bit worth copying isn’t the phone call. It’s the timing. Say it while they’re stood there, before anything is signed off, and say it to your AOM the same day rather than the next month. And I’d write it down as well, which I didn’t, because you might not have an area manager who knows you.

That’s my experience on my own agreement. Other agreements are worded differently and some of them a lot less helpfully. Read yours rather than relying on mine. I’m a licensee, not a solicitor, and none of this is legal advice.

The second one: my tills were down and the stocktake couldn’t see it

June was a nightmare. The tills went down and stayed down. Sales couldn’t be recorded properly and staff were rounding prices down at the till just to get people served and out of the queue. It is fair to say I don’t like the tills much.

The audit on 19 June came back at −£755.71. It was escalated and it was charged back to me. There was no missing money. It was an artefact of broken equipment. Stock really did leave the building, it just didn’t leave through a working till at the right price.

Here’s the honest part. It stuck, initially, and it stuck for exactly one reason: the only number in the room was the stocktaker’s. I had a story and he had a spreadsheet. I got it turned round in the end by going back to the till provider for the fault record and laying my own timeline next to it, but I should never have been in that position, because on the days it was actually happening I wrote nothing down. I was too busy serving.

The rest of the picture backed me up once I bothered to look. Days stock holding hit 48.5 that month, which on its own tells you stock wasn’t moving through the tills the way it normally does. But I only went looking for that afterwards.

Take June out and the other four audits are +£322 between them. One broken week cost me more than eight months of getting it right.

Disputing a chargeback, step by step

1. On the day, before you sign: say which line or figure you think is wrong, and ask for it to be re-checked while the stocktaker is still there. Write the query on the report or send it by email that day, even if you also say it out loud.
2. Get the full report, not the summary. The net figure hides everything. You want the line-by-line variance, the opening and closing counts, the deliveries used and the selling prices on file.
3. Check the inputs, one at a time. Prices on file against your till. Deliveries and credits against the dates of the count. Containers counted against what you know was in the cellar. A delivery booked into the wrong period on its own can produce a loss one month and a surplus the next. I've gone through what a surplus usually means and the short delivery version separately.
4. Find the document for the input that's wrong. The list below is what's worked for me.
5. Put it in writing to your area manager or BDM, naming the input, the evidence and the figure you think it should be. Not "the result's wrong". "Line 14 was counted at two kegs and here's the delivery note showing a third came in at 10am."
6. Keep the trail. Dates, who you spoke to, what they said. If it goes nowhere, that trail is what anyone else will want to see.

What evidence a BDM will actually accept

From what’s worked for me, and what’s very obviously bounced:

Works:

• A dated fault reference from your till or EPOS provider, with the time it went down and the time it came back
• Timestamped photos, including of the till screen if it’s showing an error
• Delivery notes and credit notes for the period, especially anything that crossed a stocktake date
• Your own line checks, done and kept. My agreement requires 50 a week and I used to treat that as a box to tick
• A signed wastage log
• The current report set against the previous one, showing the same category going the same way every time
• An email trail with dates on it

Doesn’t work:

• “I know my cellar.” I do know my cellar. It carries no weight whatsoever
• Anything you remembered three weeks later
• Arguing about the total. Argue about the inputs. Nobody can defend a total once one input is shown to be wrong

Why you have to document a till outage on the day

Five minutes on the day beats five hours three weeks later, and it isn’t close. What I write now, in a notebook behind the bar, is: time the till went down, time it came back, which terminals, what we did instead, who I rang, the reference number they gave me, and roughly how busy we were. Photo of the screen. That’s it, and it takes less time than changing a barrel.

A note written while it’s happening is contemporaneous, and it is treated completely differently to one written after you’ve seen a figure you don’t like. That distinction is doing all the work.

Tenant or employed manager? The rules aren't the same

Who you are changes what a chargeback even is.

If you're a tenant, a stock deficit is a commercial argument about your agreement, and your lease or tenancy says what the pubco can do about it. With the six big pubcos, the Pubs Code covers how the BDM deals with you, including the notes they have to send after a visit, which I've covered in BDM visit notes. If the pubco is using flow monitoring data to say you've bought out of the tie, that's a different fight with its own rules, in flow monitoring and buying out.

If you're an employed manager, the Employment Rights Act 1996 protects your wages. An employer can only take a stock deficiency out of your pay if your contract or your prior written agreement allows it, and for anyone in retail employment, which bar work is, the deduction on any one pay day can't be more than a tenth of your gross wages for that day. The first deduction also has to be made within twelve months of the employer finding the deficiency, or when it should have. That's a cap and a deadline, not a licence to deduct, and none of it means a deficiency is yours in the first place.

Either way, the stocktake that started it is the same set of inputs, and the same approach works. If the figure doesn't add up and you can't find why, there's a fuller method in a stock loss you can't explain, and the checks I'd run before a pubco audit are in what to expect at a pubco stock audit.

What I do differently now

I do the line checks and I keep them, because they are the only independent number I own. I walk the count with the stocktaker rather than doing paperwork in the office. I query anything I’m unhappy with on the day, in writing, before anyone signs anything off. And I keep the category detail, not just the net, because across those five audits £11,598 of stock moved between categories and it netted down to −£434, a number small enough to look like nothing was wrong.

What all this costs before you even get to an argument

You're paying for that stocktake one way or another. Independent stocktakers mostly publish somewhere between about £125 a visit and £320 a day plus VAT, and I've laid out whose rate card says what in what a pub stocktaker costs. Some pubcos make it part of the deal. Star Pubs, for example, makes its Innside Track package of EPOS, trade accountants and stocktakers a condition of new substantive agreements, though its 2025 guide lets experienced operators opt out if their own accountant and stocktaker provide a similar service.

Either way, you're the customer. A customer is allowed to ask for a re-check.

One thing worth knowing about who owns your stocktaker

Venners is owned by Christie Group plc. Christie & Co, part of the same group, acts for pub companies. That is a matter of record rather than an accusation, and you can draw your own conclusion about it.

Where that leaves me

Two reversals, and both of them came down to the same thing. Not being right. I was right about June from the first minute and it still landed on me. Saying something at the moment it mattered, and having something to say it about. The stocktaker turns up with a number. If you turn up with nothing, his number wins by default, and it should, because it’s the only one there. I got away with a phone call once. I wouldn’t plan on getting away with it twice.

Common questions

Can I dispute a stocktake result after I’ve signed the report?

You can raise it, but you’re on much weaker ground. Signing tends to be treated as agreement to the count. Query anything you’re unhappy with on the day, before signing. If you’ve already signed, focus on a specific input you can evidence as wrong rather than the total.

Does the stocktaker have to re-check a figure I dispute?

Practice varies by firm and by agreement, so read your own terms rather than relying on mine. What worked for me was simpler than a formal process: I queried the count while the stocktaker was still on site, he declined to go back and check, I told my area manager the same day, and the figure came off. Raise it before anything is signed.

What evidence works for a till outage?

A dated fault reference from your till provider is the strongest single item, ideally with the time it went down and came back. Add timestamped photos of the error screen, a contemporaneous note of what staff did instead, and your line checks for the period. Written on the day, not afterwards.

How do I dispute a stocktake chargeback?

Query the figure on the day, in writing, before signing. Ask for the full line-by-line report, check each input (prices on file, deliveries and credits against the count dates, containers counted), then send your area manager or BDM the specific input you say is wrong with a document that proves it. Arguing about the total rarely works.

Can my employer take a stock deficit out of my wages?

Only if your contract or your prior written agreement allows it. For workers in retail employment, which includes bar work, the Employment Rights Act 1996 caps a stock deficiency deduction at one tenth of the gross wages due on any pay day, and the first deduction must be made within twelve months of the deficiency being found.

How much does a pub stocktake cost?

Independent stocktakers' published rates run from about £125 a visit to £320 a day plus VAT. Some pubcos build stocktaking into the agreement: Star Pubs makes its Innside Track package a condition of new substantive agreements, with an opt-out for experienced operators.