Why Dog House Brewing switched to software & cut spreadsheets out

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The Curse of the 100 Spreadsheets

Dog House Brewing Company was first opened in August of 2021. For their first couple of months open, Dog House created and used several comprehensive spreadsheets to track all aspects of their business, and at first - it worked okay. Technically, it was capturing most of their operations and tracking a lot of what needed to be tracked. However, only a couple of months into operations, the limitations quickly became clear with using only spreadsheets to manage their business.

According to Richard McNish, Co-Owner of Dog House Brewing Company, the limitations and issues they needed to solve with this approach very quickly made themselves known. Their issues revolved around two things. First, their spreadsheets were making it clear that they needed a way to properly account for sales. Keeping track of their hundreds of sales was next to impossible only using spreadsheets, and they realized they needed a way to better keep track of those.

Secondly, Richard and Brady McNish (Brady is Richard's son, and the other Co-Owner of Dog House) began to realize that tracking inventory was very difficult as well. Tracking their ever-changing raw material, and finished goods inventory quickly became challenging and it became obvious to Richard and Brady that there must be a better solution.

In short, Richard and Brady knew that they needed to find a brewery management software fast. They now knew they needed to find a software that could help them to track their inventory and sales going forward. After some research, they found Brew Ninja was able to fit the bill for what they were looking for.

Stitching it all together

Richard and Brady quickly found Brew Ninja and decided to give it a try as a proper solution to their inventory and sales tracking woes. Their goal was to ensure they could track all aspects of their brewery operations in one place, and now, over a year later, Dog House is still using and loving Brew Ninja to this day. But don't just take it from us.

"It was able to combine all the tracking functions we were previously using across multiple platforms and spreadsheets." - Richard McNish, Co-Owner at Dog House Brewing

Thankfully, the difficult challenges they faced when Dog House first opened, were very quickly solved and improved upon when switching to Brew Ninja. What was previously tracked across multiple spreadsheets, platforms, and locations - is now being tracked in one place that multiple users have access to. Additionally, Richard and Brady were now able to see in depth details and history of their entire production from grain to glass, which is a marked improvement from their previous set up. For example, they were now not only able to look at the inventory of their product SKUs, but also read and find out exactly why and when items are added to or deducted from inventory.

Lastly, losing multiple spreadsheets and locations of information and centralizing their data in one place has made it so that Dog House Brewing has minimized information getting lost or confused along the way. As one can imagine, spreadsheets with minimal history built in, and multiple users editing at once can often lead to mistakes. Not only that, but mistakes with no easy way of knowing or tracking who made the edits. With Brew Ninja, this has been completely eliminated.

More about Dog House Brewing Company

Dog House Brewing Company is a father & son, veteran operated brewery based out of Petawawa, ON. Dog House was founded by Richard and Brady McNish, who initially started brewing in their basement as a hobby, and spent years discussing the idea of opening their own brewery. Eventually, in 2021, they decided to take the plunge and launch their own brewery thanks to some encouragement from Richard's wife to "just do it or shut up".

For Dog House, Petawawa is their home, and their passion is in sharing its history and their beer. Their vision as a brewery is to broaden the craft brewing industry in Petawawa and the Ottawa valley, while paying homage to the historic Garrison Petawawa.

Richard and Brady are also both veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces, and when they started to get serious on pursuing their goal of opening their own brewery, they were able to get some support in the form of getting to participate in Prince's Trust Canada's Operation Entrepreneur boot camp. Richard and Brady have since described this experience as exceptional, and the ability to learn from and network with instructors and business professionals was described as invaluable for them.

Despite only having been around since 2021, and hence still being a relatively small brewery at the moment - we believe small is mighty, especially in the craft brewing world. In just a couple of years, Dog House has brewed some incredible beer, built a name for themselves in the community, and continued to grow their business through their own skills as well as by working with others (like Princes Trust and Brew Ninja!)

If you're in the Petawawa area, visiting Ontario, or even if you find their beer on the shelf, you can't go wrong with visiting or trying some beer from Dog House Brewing Company!