Brewery Accounting & Bookkeeping — Batch Costs, Taproom & TTB-Ready Records
Brewing is manufacturing, retail, and hospitality in one building — and the books have to handle all three. Ingredient and batch costs, kegs that are assets not expenses, taproom sales next to distributor invoices, and federal excise reporting on every barrel. Maxim Liberty keeps craft-beverage books clean with a dedicated bookkeeper from $75/month, so you know what each beer actually costs before you price the next one.
Get Started — Money-Back Guarantee
Craft-beverage margins live in the details: cost per batch, taproom-vs-wholesale mix, keg deposits, and excise taxes tracked correctly. Our dedicated bookkeepers log transactions daily, reconcile POS and distributor payments monthly, and deliver tax-ready financials at $15/hour, billing only actual time worked. 100% money-back guarantee on your first deposit. Serving businesses across the U.S. since 2005.
On This Page
- Batch costing: what a barrel really costs
- Taproom vs. wholesale: two margin worlds
- Excise taxes and TTB-ready records
- Kegs, tanks & deposits
- What we handle
- Brewery accounting FAQs
Batch Costing: What a Barrel Really Costs
Grain, hops, yeast, and adjuncts are only the start — water, utilities allocated to the brewhouse, packaging (cans, labels, PakTechs), and brew-day labor all belong in the cost of a batch. Books that dump everything into one supplies account can’t tell you whether your flagship IPA out-earns your barrel-aged program, or what happens to margin when hop contracts reprice. We structure your books for per-batch and per-SKU cost visibility — raw ingredients, work-in-process, finished goods — reconciled against brewing software reports (Ekos, Breww, Ollie) where you use them.
Taproom vs. Wholesale: Two Margin Worlds
A pint sold over your bar and the same beer sold through a distributor are radically different businesses — different price, different margin, different payment timing. We keep taproom POS revenue (Arryved, Toast, Square) separate from wholesale and self-distribution income, reconcile distributor payments against invoices (and their deductions against reality), and show each channel’s true contribution. Taproom food programs get restaurant-style tracking alongside — see our restaurant bookkeeping for full kitchen operations.
Excise Taxes and TTB-Ready Records
Federal excise tax is owed per barrel removed, with reduced small-brewer rates, TTB operational reports on a recurring schedule, and state excise obligations on top. Those filings are only as good as the production and removal records behind them. We keep excise liabilities in their own accounts, reconcile them to production data, and maintain the clean financial trail that makes TTB reporting a form-fill for you or your compliance consultant — not a reconstruction project. We keep the records; your brewery attorney or compliance specialist owns the regulatory filings.
Kegs, Tanks & Deposits
Kegs are capital assets that wander off; keg deposits are liabilities that must eventually come back; tanks and canning lines are depreciating equipment your tax return cares about. We maintain a real fixed-asset schedule, track keg deposit liabilities so they don’t masquerade as income, and keep equipment purchases classified for your CPA’s depreciation planning instead of expensed into oblivion.
What We Handle for Breweries
Daily transaction logging, monthly reconciliation of bank, POS, and distributor accounts, batch/SKU cost structure, excise-liability tracking, accounts payable for ingredient and packaging vendors, payroll support for brewers and taproom staff, sales tax filings on taproom and merch sales, and 1099s at year-end. Books fermented too long untouched? Our catch-up bookkeeping team can rebuild seasons of records. QuickBooks Online, Xero, and integrations with your brewing software’s exports.
Brewery Accounting FAQs
Can you tell me what each beer costs to make?
Yes — that is the point of batch costing. Ingredients, packaging, and allocated brewhouse costs get structured so per-batch and per-SKU costs are visible, reconciled against your brewing software where you use one. Most owners find at least one beloved recipe that needs a price change once its true cost surfaces.
How do you handle keg deposits?
As liabilities, not revenue — a deposit is money you owe back when the keg returns. We track deposits collected and refunded separately from sales, and flag when outstanding deposits drift out of line with your keg fleet, which is usually how walked kegs finally show up in the numbers.
Do you file our TTB reports?
We keep the books TTB-ready — excise liabilities tracked, production and removal financials reconciled — and your compliance consultant or attorney files the regulatory reports from clean numbers. The same records support the reduced small-brewer excise rates your CPA will want documented.
Our taproom serves food — can you handle that side too?
Yes. Taproom food gets restaurant-style cost tracking (food costs separate from beer production, tips and sales tax handled cleanly) alongside your production books, so the kitchen’s margin never hides inside the brewery’s.
What does brewery bookkeeping cost?
Plans start at $75/month for 5 hours of dedicated bookkeeper time at $15/hour, billed only for actual time worked. A taproom-focused nano fits the smallest plan; distribution and multi-channel operations scale hours as needed. Every first deposit carries our 100% money-back guarantee.
Related Resources
Brew the Beer. We’ll Balance the Barrels.
Batch costs, channel margins, and TTB-ready records — dedicated brewery bookkeeping from $75/month with a money-back guarantee on your first deposit.