Each line in an establishment must be assigned a brand and a brewery.
Make sure you know the definition of a “line”.
It is best practice to set up an establishment with the total number of lines, regardless of whether you service them all. There may (hopefully) come a day when you can get more lines at the establishment, and just update the line from Non-Tracked to Tracked.
Tracked Lines
These are the lines you service and track their line cleaning activity. These lines appear in reports and on the line cleaning status page.
If the establishment hires you, you will typically service all the lines. These are usually in “Retailer” states or areas where brewers’/distributors are not allowed to (or don’t want to) offer line cleaning as a service. Establishments must pay for their own line cleaning.
Non-Tracked Lines
These are lines in the establishment that you DO NOT service, but may in the future.
If you clean for a distributor/brewer, separating lines this way is a must. Your customers may change the position of the brand (move it from line 3 to line 5) and staying on top of this is important. Also, you can share the non-tracked line data with your distributors if you like, which they usually find very helpful. They may even pay you for it. It is your data, we don’t share it with anyone, but you can.
Should I Track The Brands On All Lines, Even Ones I Don’t Clean?
Short answer - no. Unless you plan on selling the data.
Selling Tap Data
If you plan to sell the brands on tap data for your non-tracked lines to your current customers, then yes, you need to; you must track those brands.
For Example, say you clean lines for ABI and some establishments you call on have some MillerCoors brands on tap. Your ABI customers are usually very interested in competitive tap data. They may be willing to pay you for that data. Since your techs frequently visit these establishments, you can give ABI a really good idea of what their competitors are doing. This is a great opportunity for you because if they can switch a line from their competitor to them, you now have one more line to clean.
Instead of selling this data, you could provide it as a point of difference over your competitor as a way to secure the cleaning business of the distributor/brewery.
In both of these examples, you must track the brands on tap of the lines that you DO NOT clean.
If You Don’t Sell The Tap Data
You can just have one brewery called “Non-Tracked Line” and one brand under that Brewery Called “Non-Tracked Line”.
If it is not a line you clean, it is irrelevant what brand is on it; it is easier to just have one brand as a catch-all.
But again, it is best practice to set up an establishment with the total number of lines, regardless of whether you service them all. There may (hopefully) come a day when you can get more lines at the establishment and just update the line from Non-Tracked to Tracked.