Big Swing

The Situation

Big Swing Brewing and Backyard Bowl operated as a combined venue: craft brewery, bar, bowling alley, arcade, and restaurant. Multiple revenue streams. Multiple vendors. Multiple inventory categories. Multiple departments generating expenses every single day. The back-office work I did was about giving that complexity a structure it could actually be managed through.

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Monthly Accounting Workbooks

Monthly P&L tracking workbooks built for multiple periods, each covering:

Vendors tab — every vendor invoice logged by invoice number, payment method, amount, and department allocation (food, paper, chemicals, wine, liquor, beer, maintenance, bar maintenance, office, arcade, bowling). Auto-summing totals per invoice.

Payouts tab — daily cash and card payouts tracked by date, vendor, who authorized, amount, and expense category. Separate tracking for checks received.

Arcade tab — redemption ticket inventory and supplies tracked by vendor, invoice, item description, quantity, and cost.

Liquor, Bottles, Kegs, Wine, Ice Cream tabs — inventory tracking by product across multiple storage locations.

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Inventory Management Systems

PFG Order Worksheet — live working document for the primary food distributor covering food, liquor, bottled and canned beer, kegs, and wine. Includes cost-per-ounce and cost-per-pour calculations for liquor, bar and walk-in counts, and running inventory dollar values. Color-coded for order status.

FOH Inventory — front-of-house liquor tracking across cage, main floor, and upstairs with per-product totals.

Count Sheets — standardized physical count templates for liquor by product, package size, and count unit.

Beer Can & Bottle Counts — separate tracking across upstairs bar, main bar, and walk-in cooler. Includes draft kegs by size, ounce count, cost, and walk-in inventory.

Beverage Inventory Document — detailed written snapshot covering front bar liquor (80+ products with bottle counts), bottled and canned beer, wine, keg beer, dry storage cage, and waste tracking.

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Operational Documents

Server Job Description — complete position document covering basic responsibility, full job requirements (Illinois BASSET certification, Food Safe Handler's certification, Brunswick POS proficiency, beverage knowledge, cash handling), reporting structure, duties in operational detail, performance review criteria, and a signature acknowledgment block.

Opening Checklist — manager opening procedure covering exterior safety, interior temperature and humidity, email and voicemail, reservation review, register system, drawer setup, lighting, dining arrangement, inventory and menu checks, staff logging, accounting verification, floor cleanliness, purchasing orders, specials, signage, sound system, restrooms, deliveries, and pre-shift staff meeting.

New Hire Intake Form — standardized employee onboarding capturing name, address, contact, SSN, state withholding elections (Iowa and Illinois), hire date, location, position, rate of pay, schedule, handbook acknowledgment, training completion, 90-day review date, and hiring manager sign-off.

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Marketing & Promotions

Event flyers, promotional graphics, and social content produced for Big Swing and Backyard Bowl across seasonal events, specials, and community programming.

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What This Engagement Was

This was the financial and operational backbone of a multi-concept venue. Not a template dropped into a folder — actual working systems used by real staff in a real operation, built to handle the volume and variety of a business that served food, beer, cocktails, bowling, and arcade redemption all under one roof.