How do you keep Track?

[ColSanders]

Many of us have taken to the point of keeping inventories for one reason or another... as a matter of curiousity, how does everyone keep track and what sort of organization system do you use? I use a googledocs spreadsheet (namely so it's accessible everywhere) with the following headings:

Region Distillery Expression Age Bottler Cost ABV Comments

How do you keep track/organize it?

[karlejnar]

I use an Excel book with sheets for regions, open now, saved, empty, etc. It's been developed over years and to keep tracks there's a main page which sums everything up: No of closed, open and emptied, bottlers, cost etc.

It's a manual process of cutting and pasting when bottles get emptied or saved as samples, but it works for me.

Besides that I keep my closed and open bottles in whiskybase as well.

[Bob Barker]

I really hadn't ever thought about this I will have to make a spreadsheet to keep track thanks!

[Mr Tattie Heid]

I use a basic Open Office doc. My columns are:

A distillery name (or brand)
B age or vintage
C name or description
D abv
E bottle size
F bottler
G o/f/e (open, full, empty)
H date purchased
I shop
J price
K date opened
L date finished

Generally kept sorted for G, A, B. Thus open bottles are shown at the top, followed by unopened, followed by empty. If I did ratings, that would be a column, too, but I don't.

[mongo]

excel.

distillery, bottler, region, vintage, age, abv, rating, open, closed, replace?, price paid, source, purchase date, last tasted, last opened, last emptied.

one sheet for currently open and closed bottles, one sheet for emptied bottles and tasted samples, one sheet to keep track of closed swapped samples, one sheet for my own reference samples, one sheet for tracking home blends, one sheet for tracking potential purchases and budgets.

in no other part of my life am i so organized (or even close).

[C57]

Excel sheet. I keep it on sharepoint so I can access from any machine

Distillery
Region
Bottler
Vintage
Age
Image (link to my own website entry for that bottle)
Name (if the bottler gives one - Snow Phoenix for example)
Comment (anything else, like cask type for example)
Bottling Code
Cask #
Strength
Bottles open (I have had more than one of the same bottle open in the past)
Bottles closed
Price (paid)
Source
DoP (date of purchase)

Then a number of columns for shops I use a lot or that have good stocks and hence prices. These columns contain current prices (if I remember to update them regularly). Includes some auction sites for bottles trhat are not currently available.

Max (= insurance value) - max price of all the sources in that list of sources)
Min (min price of all the sources)
Avg
Nominal increase (current average over price I paid - only of interest in a few cases)
Collector sale value (if I had to seel it because of financial situation, what would I expect a collector to pay)

Then a number of columns for various places I have bottles stored - Rack, Lounge, Conservatory, Office cupboard

Total (total number of bottles of that expression, sum of the numbers in the various location columns)
Variance (this is like a checksum, the difference between total, and the sum of Open and closed bottles. This helps me identify if I have the number closed wrong, or have bottles listed in a location that are no longer there)

Cabinet (I have a number of cabinets in the lounge and where the "lounge" column has an entry, this column wil identify which cabinet)
Defunct (when I have none of a bottling left, I put a D in here. Almost always, the sheet is filtered to leave out those rows. That means I don't normally see all the bottles I no longer have, but if I want to look back at that info, I can un-filter)

Probably too much info for you!

[preichert]

Excel as well:

Distillery
Bottler
Name (Expression)
Type (Scotch SM, Blend, Bourbon, etc)
Region
Age
Vintage
Bottling Year
Batch/Cask
Alcohol
Bottle Size (cl)
Price (£)
Qty
Total
Purpose (drink, keep, sell)

Some columns have totals:
Age (average)
Alcohol (average)
Bottle Size (sum of products of bottle size * qty)
Price (£) (average)
Qty (sum)
Total (sum of products of qty * price)

I have sheets for Unoppened, Open, Finished, To Auction. Some of these sheets will have additional columns such as price realised in auction, PnL and so on.

I also have a couple of sheets with pivot tables and charts of unoppened and finished bottles so I can look at things like what distilleries I buy more, what distilleries have the highest average price per bottle in my collection, how much did I drink of each whisky, bottles finished per year and so on.

[Tim F]

I spent an entire afternoon making an Excel spreadsheet by going through my collection and calling it out to my wife. I then started updating price paid, source etc.

After a few weeks I forgot to keep updating it, then bought, opened, drank and sold loads of stuff and it's now hopelessly out of date. My wife is displeased.

[DavidUK]

www.whiskybase.com

[C57]

I have so many bottles that aren't on whiskybase.
And i have real problems with it - there are some scripts that run on every mouse-click and some of them kill my laptop, making it unusable

[Pete Smoke]

I rely on an age old system known as "random scraps of paper". I keep most of these scraps of paper in a notebook. One major flaw with this system being, that essentially it doesn't work.

[preichert]

I have so many bottles that aren't on whiskybase.
And i have real problems with it - there are some scripts that run on every mouse-click and some of them kill my laptop, making it unusable

I'm not a big fan either. Tried to use it a couple of times but just can't get to like it.

The spreadsheet started very simple and evolved over time, adding a new column here or a new bit of information there. Now it gives me a level of detail and analysis over my inventory that I'm very happy with. I tried other options like a database in Bento or an app called iMalt HD (for iPad) but the spreadsheet just works nicely and lets me do what I want to do very easily.

[portwood]

I'm not a big fan either. Tried to use it a couple of times but just can't get to like it.

The spreadsheet started very simple and evolved over time, adding a new column here or a new bit of information there. Now it gives me a level of detail and analysis over my inventory that I'm very happy with. I tried other options like a database in Bento or an app called iMalt HD (for iPad) but the spreadsheet just works nicely and lets me do what I want to do very easily.

+1

[Whiskey Cyclist]

Thanks everyone, just realised how much work I have to do

I have entered stuff in whiskybase but it isn't up to date...

[gimmeadram]

Mac Pages software:

Distillery, bottle name, age (also batch or year bottled if it is of note), and if IB, name of bottler, year distilled, year bottled, and ABV%. That's all. Some of you guys are quite impressive! And a bit scary!

[karlejnar]

OK continueing my first post, here are my columns of the sheets:

Distillery
Bottler (2-3 letter abbreviation)
Name or "Vintage"
Age
Abv
Distilled (date)
Bottled (date)
Cask Type/Specials/etc.
Cask No.
Bottle No.
No of Bottles
Purchase code
Purchase
Date of purchase
Date opened
Date emptied
Time opened (calculated=(TODAY()-"date opened")/365*12)
Price paid (usually £ or €/calculated in £ when bought in DK)
Danish Price (calculated/price paid in DK)
Vol
Remark
Chillfiltered
Coloured

The sheets are: Main, Open, Islay, Islands, Campbeltown, Speyside, Highland, Lowland, Save, Empty, Sold

The main sheet sums up loads of stuff using the SUMIF function, e.g. bottles pr distillery (open and closed). Furthermore bottles pr. region, pr. bottler, etc.
All in all a lot of numbers that I don't really use except the closed/open totals

The total figures of cost are the most scary numbers, so I tend not to look at them much

BTW to keep track of opened ones, they are moved from a region sheet to the "open" sheet and/or the "save" sheet. And when gone they are moved to the "empty" (or "sold" in rare cases). All by just cut & paste.

[Mariner]

I have so many bottles that aren't on whiskybase.

The power of whiskybase is that users can add bottles/ pictures/ data to the database. So you can always add stuff yourself

I need to do that myself too

[Yello to Mello]

A wad of receipts with an elastic band to keep track of purchases.

I did have an excel spreadsheet but I found it hard to make consistent entries and thought 50 bottles of inventory wasnt enough. I guess I can try again if I remember to update before I put an empty in the recycling bin.

[laser wolf]

Interesting, my Google Doc seems to be rather different than others. Funny, ones priorities.
Vintage/Age Statement
Bottler
Distillery
Notes (peated, cask type, finish)
Purchased (number of bottles)
Consumed (number of bottles)
Paid per Bottle (USD)
To Replace per Bot (current auction prices)
Paid-Tot (price per bottle*(purchased-consumed))
To Replace-Tot (replace per bottle*(purchased-consumed))

I know I shouldn't encourage my salivatory glands with the auction prices of my collection, because I DO intend to drink it all (well, all the single-malt at least, might unload my bourbons).
I do like to have the replacement cost for the whole collection for purposes of insurance though. I worry rather a lot about that. Anyone else?

[C57]

I have so many bottles that aren't on whiskybase.

The power of whiskybase is that users can add bottles/ pictures/ data to the database. So you can always add stuff yourself

I need to do that myself too

I know (I used to be an admin on WB).
However it takes a longish time and you need quitre a bit of info, plus it is slow for me (due to scripts as I mentioned before) and is not available offline

[orange_barnet]

Like Pete ^^, scraps of paper was my preferred method for a long time. Then I motivated myself to 'get organised' on excel which was always out of date, and so I progressed to a hybrid method of excel+scraps of paper. This however wasn't 'progress' and now I'm predominantly back to scraps of paper, when I bother with them at all.

[John Lee]

I used a spreadsheet up to about 6 years ago but my computer crashed and it wasn't backed up. I am still too upset to start again! All I use now is my increasingly creaky memory.

[Loddonite]

I'm using a spreadsheet at the moment, but I'm only feeling my way in this madness. If it really takes hold it'll be on an Access database.

[Nick Brown]

I have always relied on memory. Quite imperfect, I know. But when I was clearing out prior to emigrating I discovered lots of long forgotten bottles at the bottom of the pile.

[Mr Tattie Heid]

No doubt you would far prefer to have drunk them than sold them at a loss.