Data Files samples / Food and beverages

Bramblegate Wine and Deli

Batches with their dates, markdowns, write-offs, the till, age checks and refusals, suppliers and purchase orders for a food and drink shop.

Download 662 KB16 tables, 16 queries, 8 reports, 5 print templates and 40,106 invented records, dated back from 2026-10-22.

Rutba Data Files with Bramblegate Wine and Deli, the food and beverages sample, open at its print template Till receipt: a page laid out with the business's own name and address at the head and one of its records filled in, beside the list of the database's tables and how many records each holds — Bramblegate Wine and Deli in Rutba Data Files, made with its invented records and open at its print template Till receipt.

Overview

Bramblegate Wine and Deli is an invented independent food and drink shop. It sells wines, beers, ciders, spirits and soft drinks, has a deli counter of cheese, cured and cooked meats, olives and salads, takes fresh bread from a bakery every morning, and keeps a shelf of fine foods: oils, pasta, preserves, crackers, coffee and chocolate. It is open from nine to eight, Monday to Saturday, and from ten to four on Sunday, and holds a premises licence to sell alcohol.

Much of what it sells has a date on it. Every delivery comes in as batches, each with its batch code and its use-by or best-before date, and the till takes each sale from the batch with the earliest date. Each morning a date check marks down what is close to its date, printing a reduced label for each pack, and takes off sale what has passed it, writing it off at what it cost. So the records show the waste that selling fresh food brings, by month and by product, and what each category earns once the markdowns are paid for.

Anyone who looks under 25 is asked for ID before an alcohol sale; the till records the check on each sale, and each refusal goes into a register kept month by month and signed by the personal licence holder. Six or more bottles of wine, or twelve or more beers and ciders, earn ten percent off as a mixed case.

The sample holds a year of trading, made up a day at a time: busier on Friday and Saturday evenings and in December, rose, beer and cider in summer, whisky, sparkling wine and chocolates at Christmas. Prices on the shelf include VAT; deli, bakery and fine foods are zero-rated, while drinks, crisps and sweets carry the standard rate.

In Rutba Data Files, choose Food and beverages on the start screen, then With sample records to look around, or Empty for the same design with nothing in it.

It suits, with small changes

An off-licence or liquor store
A delicatessen
A farm shop
A health food shop
A cheese shop or butcher with a counter
A village shop selling fresh food

Read on

Tutorial: the everyday tasks: 6 everyday tasks, step by step, each naming what to open.
Tables, fields and relationships: every field of 16 tables, and how they are related.
Queries, forms, reports and print templates: what each one shows, its criteria and calculated columns, and when to print it.

Things you should know

Everything in a sample's records is invented: the business, the people, their addresses, e-mail addresses on example domains that reach nobody, and phone numbers from the ranges kept for drama and fiction. Tax, company and bank numbers are placeholders of zeros.
The dates count back from the day the file was made, and some run on into the weeks after it, as real bookings and due dates do. Made from the Data Files start screen, a sample is dated from that day. Queries that compare with today (overdue, due this week) show more as a downloaded file gets older.
To start empty, choose the same business on the start screen and then Empty: the same tables, queries, forms, reports and print templates, with nothing in them but the Start Here guide.
Your records live in one file on your computer. Keep copies: File, Save As makes one, and a copy on another drive or in your own cloud storage keeps it safe if this computer is lost. Close the database before copying the file by hand.
Every change to the design (a new field, a renamed table) is a numbered step that Data Files keeps, so you can see what was changed and when.
Stock lives in Batches. A product's In Stock is all its batches' Remaining added up; in the sample's records the till takes each sale from the batch with the earliest date, and the date check takes what has passed its date off sale. When you enter sales or deliveries by hand, change Remaining on the batch and In Stock on the product yourself.
Use by and best before are not the same. A use-by line (chilled meats, cheese, salads, fresh juice) must not be sold after its date, so it is written off the next morning. A best-before line may be sold after its date, but this shop marks it down within two weeks of it and writes it off once the date has passed. Wine and spirits carry no date, only a batch code.
The markdown rules in the sample: a use-by line is reduced by a quarter the day before its date and by half on the day; bread is reduced by half on its date; food that keeps is reduced by 30 percent within two weeks of its date and by half in its last three days. Change them to your own.
A sale's Total, VAT, Standard Rated and Saved are what the till worked out and printed: each line's VAT rounded to the penny, then added up. They are stored so a receipt reprints exactly as it was. The query Receipt totals works them out from the lines.
Prices include VAT. Cost Price, Unit Cost and purchase orders are before VAT, as suppliers invoice them. The margin queries take the VAT off the takings before they take off the cost.
The refusals register keeps no names, only what is needed to recognise someone: an age, what they looked like, what happened. Keep it on the premises and show it when the licensing authority or the police ask.
The print templates print every record of their table unless you choose some: print a receipt from the Sales form, a day's sheet from the Date Checks form, a month's register from the Refusal Registers form.

Starting with your own records

Start with Business, the shop's name, address and VAT number and the returns policy in Document Footer, which the receipts print. Then Categories (with their VAT, age rule and case discount), Suppliers, Staff and Products with their date kind, prices, reorder levels and pack sizes. Enter what you hold now as one batch per product with its date, and set In Stock to match. Purchase orders, batches, sales, date checks and refusals come in as you trade; add a Refusal Registers record at the start of each month.

Making it yours

Every change to the design is a numbered step in Data Files, so a change can be seen and undone.

Sell cheese and meat by weight: add a Weight field to Sale Lines in kilograms, make the price per kilogram, and change the line amount to Round([Weight] * [Unit Price], 2).
Keep a wine list for the trade: add a Customers table for restaurants and offices, an Invoices table pointing at it, and a print template that invoices them monthly.
Record temperatures properly: add a Temperature Readings table (date, time, fridge, reading, staff) in place of the text on Date Checks, and a query for readings above 5 degrees.
Run a loyalty or wine club: add a Members table, point Sales at it, and give members their own case discount in a calculated column.
Track supplier credits for what arrives short-dated: add a Credits table pointing at Batches, with the units refused and the credit note number.
Sell tobacco or other age-restricted goods: add a category with Age Restricted ticked; the age check and the refusals register work for it as they do for alcohol.
Order to a plan: add a Par Level field to Products for each weekday and make Stock to reorder compare In Stock with it.

Questions people ask

How do I see what is going out of date?: Run the query Expiring in the next 7 days, or print the report Date check list, which puts it on a page for each category. Days Left 0 means the date is today.
Why does the till sell a reduced pack before a full-price one?: It sells the batch with the earliest date first, which is the one most likely to have been reduced. On the shelf, reduced packs go at the front for the same reason.
How much do we throw away?: Open the report Write-offs by month for units and cost each month by reason. Set it against the takings in Takings by month: a few percent of the takings of a deli counter is usual. The query Write-offs by product shows which lines to order less of.
What do I need to show the licensing officer?: Print the print template Refusals register for each month asked about, signed by the personal licence holder, and the Staff table with each person's Age Check Training date.
How does the mixed-case discount work?: Each category has a Case Quantity and a Case Discount. When a sale has that many units of the category, its lines at the shelf price get the discount: ten percent off six bottles of wine, or twelve beers and ciders. It is not given on top of a reduced price.
Why does a batch of wine have no expiry date?: Wine and spirits do not go off on a shelf, so their Date Kind is None and their batches carry only a batch code, for tracing a bad case back to its delivery.
A supplier has recalled a batch. How do I find it?: Open the Batches form and find the Batch Code. Its Sale Lines show every sale it went into, and the query Stock by batch shows how many are still on the shelf to take off sale.

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