Brewery

Brewery Facilities Explained: Production, Sub Brand, Storage, and How They Tie Into Locations

A Facility is the building block of the BarSight brewery module. Every tank, batch, pallet of cans, bag of malt, and customer order belongs to exactly one facility. Getting your facilities set up correctly at the start is the difference between clean per-brand reporting and a tangle of mixed inventory later. This guide explains the three facility types, every option on the facility setup screen, how facilities relate to your Locations, and the recommended layouts for common situations such as multiple beer labels sharing one brewhouse, or a spirits line with its own dedicated equipment.

Before You Start

The brewery module must be active on your account. See Activating the Brewery Inventory Module.
You need the Brewery → Settings permission (Access Level 43) to add or edit facilities. Owners always have it.
To add a new Location you also need the Location & Employees permission (Access Level 3).
Plan your layout before creating batches or receiving inventory. A facility cannot be removed once it has stock, batches, or orders attached to it.

Locations vs Facilities: Two Different Things

BarSight has two separate concepts that are easy to mix up. They live on different screens and control different things.

Locations (Settings → Locations)

A Location is a physical site for your people. It is shared by every BarSight module (scheduling, timecards, payroll, logbooks, and the brewery). A Location has an address, a timezone, and its own scheduling and timecard rules. Employees are assigned to a Location through their roles.

In the brewery module, the Location controls:

Which facilities a staff member can see. Anyone without the Brewery Settings permission only sees facilities attached to their own Location. Owners and users with Brewery Settings see every facility.
Product Location Scope. Each product (Brewery → Recipes) has a Location Scope of either All Locations or one specific Location. When starting a batch at a facility, only products scoped to that facility's Location (or to All Locations) are offered.
Report filtering. Some reports, such as the BC LDB batch export, can be filtered by Location as well as by facility.

Facilities (Brewery → Settings → Facility List)

A Facility is a place where beer and inventory live. Every facility is attached to one Location, but a single Location can have many facilities. The facility controls:

Equipment. Tanks and vessels belong to a facility. The Planning screen, Tank Layout, and batch tank selection only show that facility's tanks.
Batches. Every batch is started at a facility, and by default it can only use that facility's tanks and ingredient stock.
Inventory stock levels. Ingredients, consumables, containers, and packaged product all carry a quantity per facility. The same inventory item (say, Pilsner Malt) can have 500 kg at one facility and 0 kg at another.
Sales orders. Every order has a Shipping Facility (where the stock comes from) and a selling identity (whose name, invoice prefix, tax numbers, and email footer appear on the order).
Customer portal. Each customer has an Order Facilities allow-list controlling which facilities they can pick under Ordering From in the online portal.
Price lists. Price lists are created per facility.
Reports. Inventory, stock levels, consumed ingredients, packaged stock, TTB, and sales reports can all be run for a single facility, and sales reports show both the shipping facility and the brand facility on every line.

The simple rule: if it is about where staff work and get paid, it is a Location. If it is about where beer, ingredients, tanks, and orders are tracked, it is a Facility.

[SCREENSHOT: Side by side of Settings → Locations list and Brewery → Settings → Facility List, with the Location column in the Facility List highlighted to show the link between them]

The Facility List

Navigate to Brewery → Settings.
The Facility List box at the top shows every facility you can access, with its Type, its Location (highlighted in blue when it matches your own Location), and how many pieces of online Equipment it has.
Click any row to edit that facility, or click Add Facility to create a new one.

Every account starts with one facility called Main Brewery of type Production, attached to your first Location.

[SCREENSHOT: Brewery → Settings page with the Facility List box showing three facilities of different types and the Add Facility button]

The Three Facility Types

The Facility Type dropdown on the facility form has three options. The type mainly decides whether the facility can be the seller on an order.

Production

The default. A Production facility is a real brewery, cidery, distillery, or winery. It has its own equipment, brews its own batches, holds its own stock, and sells under its own name. Use this for your main brewhouse and for any product line that runs on dedicated equipment.

Sub Brand

A Sub Brand facility behaves exactly like a Production facility in the system: it can hold stock, run batches, and sell orders under its own identity. The difference is intent and reporting. Use Sub Brand for a label or brand that you want to track and report on separately, even though it is brewed on the same equipment as your main brand. The Type column in the Facility List and the Brand column on sales reports make it obvious which facilities are brands rather than physical breweries.

Sub Brand facilities are almost always combined with the Virtual Facility checkbox (explained below) so they can borrow tanks and ingredients from the main Production facility.

Storage

A Storage facility is a warehouse, cold room, distribution hub, or off-site depot. It holds stock and can ship orders, but it has no selling identity of its own. When you create an order that ships from a Storage facility, BarSight adds a required Selling Facility field so you choose which Production or Sub Brand facility's name, invoice prefix, tax numbers, and email settings appear on that order.

Storage facilities never appear in the Selling Facility list. They also work well as a holding area for packaged product transferred out of a brewery before delivery.

[SCREENSHOT: Facility form with the Facility Type dropdown open showing Production, Sub Brand, and Storage]

Every Field on the Facility Setup Screen

Facility box

Title (required): the facility name. This is what appears in the facility switcher on the Planning, Inventory, Orders, and Packaged Products screens. If Use Facility Name for Customer Orders is checked, it is also what your customers see.
Location (required): the Location (from Settings → Locations) this facility belongs to. Controls staff visibility and product scope as described above.
Facility Type (required): Production, Sub Brand, or Storage.

Checkboxes

Use Facility Name for Customer Orders

By default, order emails, PDF invoices, and the printed sales sheet show your company name (the account-level name from your account settings). Check this box to use the facility's Title instead. This is the key setting for running multiple brands: check it on each Sub Brand facility so customers of that label see the label's name, not the parent company's name, on everything they receive. When an order ships from a Storage facility, the name comes from the Selling Facility chosen on the order.

Virtual Facility

A Virtual Facility does not need its own tanks or ingredients. When a batch is started at a Virtual Facility:

Tank auto-placement and the manual tank picker show tanks from every facility, not just this one.
The ingredient picker shows ingredient stock from every facility.
Packaging can pull containers (cans, kegs, bottles) and consumables from every facility.
The product picker ignores Location Scope and offers every product.

The batch itself, and the packaged product it produces, still belong to the Virtual Facility. This is what makes shared-equipment brands work: the beer is brewed in the main brewery's tanks using the main brewery's malt, but it is recorded, stocked, and sold as the sub brand.

Important: "every facility" really means every facility in your account, not just the ones at the same Location. See the tips section below.

Auto Ship Orders

When enabled, any order at this facility that is still unshipped and has a status of Pending or Ordered will be shipped automatically by BarSight the day after its fulfillment (pickup or delivery) date passes. The order screen shows a reminder that auto ship is on for that facility. Use this for facilities where orders are reliably picked up on the scheduled date and you do not want staff manually clicking Ship. Leave it off if you want shipping to be a deliberate confirmation step.

Equipment box

Each row is one tank or vessel that belongs to this facility. Use the move handles to reorder them; that order is used on the Planning and Tank Layout screens.

Title: the tank name, such as FV1 or Brite 2.
Type: Brewing, Fermentation, Conditioning, Lagering, Barrel, Unitank, Storage, or Other. Recipe steps look for tanks by type, so a fermenter set to Conditioning will never be offered for a Ferment step.
Visible: set to No to keep a tank on file without showing it on the Planning and Tank Layout screens.
Taxable: marks the tank as an excise (bonded) vessel. In jurisdictions with excise reporting, a batch must pass through a taxable tank before it can be packaged.
Volume and UOM: the working capacity of the tank. Used for loss tracking, splits, blends, and packaging limits. The default unit is hectolitres, or barrels for US accounts.

Storage facilities usually have no equipment. Virtual Sub Brand facilities usually have none either, since they borrow tanks.

Boxes that appear only after the facility is saved

Open an existing facility to see these additional sections.

BC Tax Setup (British Columbia accounts only): Store Number, GST Number, PST Number, and Disable Taxable Tank Requirement. Each brand can carry its own registration numbers, which are printed on orders and used in LDB reporting. The order screen warns you if the selling facility is missing a Store or GST number.
Portal and Sales: Sales Sheet Message (shown at the top of the printed sales sheet) and PDF Footer Message (shown at the bottom of PDF customer orders).
Email Settings: Email CC (extra addresses copied on order notifications), Email Message (the closing message in customer order emails), and Invoice Prefix (up to 6 characters added in front of invoice numbers, for example NB makes invoice NB123).

These per-facility settings are what give each brand a distinct face to the customer. On a Storage facility they are ignored in favour of the Selling Facility's settings.

[SCREENSHOT: Existing facility form scrolled to show the BC Tax Setup, Portal and Sales, and Email Settings boxes]

Recommended Layouts

Below are the layouts we recommend for the situations we see most often. Most large accounts end up combining two or three of them.

Layout 1: One brewery, one brand

Keep the default Main Brewery Production facility, rename it if you like, add your tanks, and stop there. One Location, one facility.

Layout 2: Several beer labels brewed on the same equipment

This is for a brewery that brews under, say, three different labels but uses one brewhouse, one set of fermenters, and one malt room.

Keep your main brewery as a Production facility with all the shared tanks listed under Equipment. All raw ingredients are received into this facility.
Create one facility per label. Set Facility Type to Sub Brand, choose the same Location as the main brewery, and check Virtual Facility. Leave the Equipment box empty.
On each Sub Brand facility, check Use Facility Name for Customer Orders and fill in the Invoice Prefix, Email Message, PDF Footer Message, and (in BC) the brand's tax numbers.
When brewing a label's beer, start the batch with Facility set to that label's Sub Brand facility. Because it is virtual, the batch will be placed in the main brewery's tanks and can consume the main brewery's ingredients, but the batch and its packaged output are recorded under the label.
Sell the label's beer with Shipping Facility set to the label's facility. The customer sees the label's name and invoice prefix.
On each customer, set Order Facilities so portal customers only see the labels they actually buy from.

Result: one set of tanks and one ingredient stock, but batches, packaged inventory, sales, and reports are cleanly separated per label. Switching the facility dropdown on the Planning, Inventory, Orders, or Packaged Products screen shows one label at a time.

[SCREENSHOT: Facility List showing "Main Brewery" (Production) plus two Sub Brand facilities, all on the same Location]

If you do not need separate stock, sales identity, or reports per label, you can skip this layout entirely and just use product categories inside a single Production facility. Sub Brand facilities are only worth it when the label needs its own numbers.

Layout 3: Spirits, wine, cider, or soda with dedicated equipment and ingredients

This is for a product line that shares your building but has its own still, fermenters, or carbonation gear, buys its own ingredients, and needs to be reported as a separate operation.

Create a new facility with Facility Type set to Production. Do not check Virtual Facility. This keeps its tanks, ingredients, and containers walled off from the beer side.
List the dedicated equipment under Equipment. Mark excise vessels as Taxable where required.
Receive that line's ingredients and packaging materials into this facility so they never show up as available beer stock. If something was received to the wrong facility, open the inventory item, choose the stock line, and click Transfer to Location to move it.
Check Use Facility Name for Customer Orders and give it its own Invoice Prefix and email settings if it sells under a different name.
Decide on the Location (see the next section). If the spirits team is scheduled and paid separately, or you want its products hidden from the beer side's batch screen, give it its own Location and set the spirits products' Location Scope to that Location.

Result: a fully independent operation inside the same account. Its inventory value, consumed ingredients, packaged stock, TTB or excise volumes, and sales all report on their own when you pick that facility.

Layout 4: A warehouse or distribution hub

Create a facility with Facility Type set to Storage. Attach it to the Location of the warehouse if it has its own staff, otherwise to the nearest brewery's Location.
Move packaged product into it using Transfer to Location on the inventory item, or the bulk Transfer Stock option.
When creating an order that ships from the warehouse, choose the warehouse as Shipping Facility and the brand that owns the beer as Selling Facility.
Consider turning on Auto Ship Orders for the warehouse if orders leave on schedule.

Layout 5: A second brewery in another city

Go to Settings → Locations and click Add Location for the new site, so its staff can be scheduled and paid there.
Create a Production facility attached to that new Location with its own equipment.
Staff at the second site who do not have Brewery Settings permission will automatically see only their own site's facilities.

Choosing a Location for a New Facility

Ask these questions. If the answer to any of them is yes, the facility should get its own Location.

Is it at a different address or in a different timezone?
Are its employees scheduled, clocked, or paid separately from the main brewery?
Do you want staff at the main brewery (without Brewery Settings permission) to not see this facility at all?
Do you want to hide this line's products from the main brewery's batch screen using Location Scope?

If the answer to all of them is no, attach the facility to the same Location as the main brewery. Sub Brand labels almost always share the main brewery's Location.

Step-by-Step: Creating a Facility

Navigate to Brewery → Settings.
In the Facility List box, click Add Facility.
Enter a Title.
Choose the Location.
Choose the Facility Type.
Tick the checkboxes you need: Use Facility Name for Customer Orders, Virtual Facility, Auto Ship Orders.
Under Equipment, fill in each tank's Title, Type, Visible, Taxable, Volume, and UOM. Click the add control to add more rows, or leave the box alone for a Storage or Virtual facility.
Click Save. You are returned to the Facility List.
Click the new facility to reopen it and complete the Portal and Sales, Email Settings, and any locale tax boxes, then Save again.

[VIDEO: Creating a Production facility, a Virtual Sub Brand facility, and a Storage facility, then placing an order from the Storage facility with a Selling Facility (6-8 minutes)]

Tips and Best Practices

Set up facilities before receiving inventory or starting batches. Stock and batches are locked to the facility they were created at, and you cannot delete a facility that has stock, batches, or orders.
Virtual means everything. A Virtual Facility can pull tanks and ingredients from any facility, including a dedicated spirits or soda facility. If you run both shared beer labels and a walled-off product line, make sure staff starting batches at a virtual label pick the right tanks and ingredients. Keep the dedicated line itself non-virtual.
Product Location Scope is ignored by Virtual Facilities. If you scope products to Locations to keep lists tidy, remember virtual sub brands will still see all of them.
Watch the facility switcher. The Planning, Inventory, Orders, Packaged Products, Batches, and Tank screens each have a facility dropdown. Users with Brewery Settings permission can also pick All Locations on the Orders screen. If something "disappeared", check which facility is selected first.
One invoice prefix per brand. Prefixes make it obvious which brand an invoice belongs to when you reconcile in your accounting system.
Customer allow-lists. A customer's Order Facilities list defaults to all facilities when the customer is created. Trim it so portal customers only see the brands they deal with.
Sales reports show both facilities. The ordered sales reports include a Brand column (the selling facility) and a Facility column (the shipping facility), so a brand's sales are still attributed correctly even when shipped from a warehouse.

Troubleshooting

Problem: A staff member cannot see a facility in the dropdown.

Solution: Without the Brewery Settings permission, users only see facilities attached to their own Location. Either move the facility to their Location, assign the employee a role at that Location, or grant the permission.

Problem: Starting a batch at a sub brand shows no tanks or no ingredients.

Solution: The sub brand facility is not marked as a Virtual Facility. Open it under Brewery → Settings and check Virtual Facility, or add equipment and receive stock directly into it.

Problem: A product does not appear when starting a batch.

Solution: The product's Location Scope (Brewery → Recipes → product) does not match the facility's Location. Set it to All Locations or to the correct Location.

Problem: The order screen shows "This facility is missing: Store Number, GST Number".

Solution: Open the selling facility (or the shipping facility if no selling facility is set) and fill in the BC Tax Setup box.

Problem: Orders still show the company name instead of the brand name.

Solution: Check Use Facility Name for Customer Orders on the brand facility. For orders shipped from a Storage facility, the name comes from the Selling Facility, so check the box there instead.

Problem: The Selling Facility field does not appear when creating an order.

Solution: It only appears when at least one Storage facility exists. Production and Sub Brand facilities always sell under their own identity. To change facilities on an existing order, use Change Facility on the order screen.

Problem: "You cannot delete a location that has inventory" when removing a facility.

Solution: Transfer all stock out of it first, then remove it. Facilities with batches or orders cannot be removed at all; leave them in place and stop using them.

Problem: An order item was allocated from the wrong facility's stock.

Solution: Open the order, use Change Facility to set the correct Shipping Facility, or remove the item and re-add it so stock is allocated from the right facility. If you have many affected orders, contact BarSight support and we can run a cross-facility stock check on your account.

Related Features

Brewery Quick Start Guide: setting up your first facility, taxes, and units of measure.
Location Settings Explained: the scheduling and timecard side of Locations.
Brewing a Batch: choosing a facility, tanks, and ingredients when starting a batch.
Importing Brewery Inventory Items: bulk loading ingredients before you receive them into facilities.