Stocktaking with ICRTouch: what TouchOffice Web+ counts, and the open bottle a barcode can’t see

ICRTouch is the till a lot of UK pubs already have, and its stock control is real, but it is a paid upgrade sold through a local dealer rather than something you switch on. TouchOffice Web+ and the TouchStock handheld will count units, book deliveries and show a stock variance. What no barcode scanner can tell you is how much vodka is left in an open bottle, or how many pints are in a keg, and that is where most of a pub's loss sits.

This is the fifth till in the series, after Epos Now, Zettle, Square and SumUp. Same rules. Everything I say about ICRTouch comes from ICRTouch's own product pages and brochure, checked today, and where their pages don't say something I'll tell you to ask rather than guess.

The three bits you'll hear about

TouchPoint is the till software on the bar. TouchOffice Web is the back office, in the cloud, so you can look at sales from your phone at home. TouchStock is an Android handheld app for counting and deliveries. If you've got the first two and never seen the third, that's because stock lives in the upgraded tier.

The plain TouchOffice Web side is good at sales. ICRTouch say it has over 200 standard reports, real-time and historical, and you can export any of them to HTML, PDF or CSV. You can change prices remotely, at one site or across several, and schedule them. Their pubs page makes a point of happy hours: set the price change once and the till does it on the clock, which beats relying on whoever's on to remember. If you run promotions, read my happy hour maths before you schedule anything, because the till will cheerfully automate a promotion that loses money.

Stock control is the Web+ upgrade

ICRTouch's own brochure is clear about the split. Stock control, the TouchStock handheld, vouchers and the Xero integration sit in TouchOffice Web+. In their words you can "know your stock levels, schedule and place orders and easily keep track of your ins & outs", report on wastages and returns, and "use stock variance to investigate missing stock".

TouchStock does the legwork. Per ICRTouch's product page it counts stock, scans barcodes, checks deliveries and prints labels, and it syncs with Web+ to create orders and update quantities. The customer quote on the same page describes using the one device for both stocktakes and booking in deliveries, which is the right instinct: the delivery check at the door is where a lot of shortfalls are cheapest to catch, and I've written up the doorstep claim window separately.

Pricing is the frustrating part. ICRTouch sell through authorised partners, and neither the Web+ upgrade nor TouchStock has a public price on their site. So the cost of stock control on your till is whatever your dealer quotes. Get it in writing, monthly and annual, and ask whether the handheld is a device you buy or a licence on an Android phone you already own.

What a barcode can't see

A scanner identifies the product. It doesn't know how full the bottle is. That sounds obvious, but it's where till-based counts quietly go wrong in a pub, because the expensive stock on a back bar is mostly open.

Say you've got 30 open spirit bottles across the gantry and speed rail, averaging half full. If they get counted as whole bottles, which is what happens when the count is "scan it, type 1", the count overstates your stock by 15 bottles. At an illustrative £16 a bottle ex-VAT that's £240 of stock that doesn't exist. In 25ml measures it's 420 serves. This count looks brilliant. The next one, when those bottles are empty and binned, eats the lot, and somebody gets asked hard questions about a loss that was really a counting habit.

The fix works with any system. Every open bottle gets a fraction: tenths by eye if you're quick and consistent, or weighed if you want it right to the measure. I've done the method in full in the part bottles guide. Before you trust a TouchStock count on spirits, ask your partner one question: does our setup take decimal quantities, and in what unit? If the answer is whole bottles only, the spirits section needs counting another way.

The keg problem, and the button behind it

Draught is worse. A keg on a scanner is one keg. What you need to know is how many pints are in it, and the only ways to find that out are to weigh it or, for cask, dip it. The keg weighing guide covers how.

Then there's the theoretical side. Any till's stock variance is a sum: what came in, minus what the till says went out, against what you counted. On draught, "what the till says went out" depends entirely on how each button is linked to the stock record. A pint button should take a pint off the keg. A half should take a half. A shandy or a lager top should take less than a pint of lager, and a jug or a pitcher should take whatever it actually holds. If any of those links is wrong, or missing, the variance report is wrong from the first night, and it will stay wrong however carefully you count.

ICRTouch's pages don't spell out how your buttons are linked, and every dealer sets it up a bit differently, so I won't guess. Ask your partner to print the stock link for every draught button and check it against the glass. Twenty minutes, once. It's the most useful twenty minutes you'll spend on a till stock system. My new line setup guide covers the same checks for any till.

And remember what a till can never see. Line cleaning, fobbing and the pint that went back aren't sales. If they aren't logged as waste, they show as loss. A ten-tap bar on medium runs can put 20 pints down the drain on cleaning day, as I worked out in the line cleaning guide, before anyone has pulled a pint for a customer.

About "investigate without tipping off the staff"

The TouchOffice Web brochure sells the reporting side partly on catching misuse: "keep an eye on misuse, and investigate without tipping off the staff involved". The TouchOffice Web page also offers the till's audit trail overlaid on compatible CCTV. Both are real tools and I can see why a big operator wants them.

My view, from behind a bar: use the audit trail to put a time on a gap, not a name on it. Most of the variances I've chased turned out to be a button, a measure or a method. A void report read by reason and time of day tells you far more than one read by name, and the voids and refunds guide shows how. Go straight to the CCTV on a number you haven't proved and you'll lose a good team member over a mislinked shandy button.

Getting your data out

The useful bit for anyone counting outside the till is the export. Every report goes to CSV, so your product list and your sales by product for a period can come out as a file. That's your product library at setup, and your "till says" figure for each line every time you count.

If you want to see the back office before you talk to a dealer, ICRTouch publish a TouchOffice Web demo on their product page with the login shown right there (username demo, password demo). Worth ten minutes to see where the reports live.

Does StockTap plug into ICRTouch?

No, not natively, and I'd rather say so plainly. What works today is the same file round trip as every till in this series. Export your products from TouchOffice Web as CSV, import them into StockTap once, weigh or tenths-count the bar, and when you do a spot check type the till's measures sold for each line into the till figure box. The variance comes out per product, in measures and in pounds. If you already pay for Web+, the honest pitch is narrower: use TouchStock for cases, cans and deliveries, and count the open bottles and kegs by weight, because that's the stock a barcode can't measure.

Common questions

Does ICRTouch do stock control?

Yes, through the TouchOffice Web+ upgrade rather than the standard back office. ICRTouch's brochure lists stock levels, ordering, deliveries, wastage and returns reports and a stock variance report in Web+, with the TouchStock Android handheld for counting and booking in deliveries.

How much does ICRTouch TouchOffice Web+ cost?

ICRTouch don't publish a price. Their systems are sold and supported through authorised partners, so the cost of Web+ and TouchStock is whatever your local dealer quotes. Ask for monthly and annual figures in writing.

Can ICRTouch count a part bottle or a keg?

A barcode scan identifies the product, not how much is left in it. Whatever you count with, an open bottle needs a fraction or a weight and a keg needs weighing or dipping. Ask your partner whether your TouchStock setup accepts decimal quantities before relying on it for spirits.

Which till is this series doing next?

That's the five tills on my list done. If yours isn't covered, the EPOS integration guide covers making any till and any stock system work together, and I'll add more as people ask.