Stock counts and adjustments

Add-on

Stock & Recipes is an add-on. See What's included, and what's an add-on.

What this is for

Stock on screen and stock on the shelf disagree. Always, eventually. This page is about keeping the gap small and knowing why it's there.

Movements

Every change to a stock level is a movement, and every movement has a type:

Type	What it is
Stock In	Something arrived — a delivery, or an opening count.
Stock Out	Something left that wasn't a sale.
Waste	Something was thrown away.
Transfer	Something moved to another branch.

Sales create movements on their own, through recipes. These four are the manual ones.

Inventory › Inventory Movements shows them all, with totals per type and filters by type, category, date and staff member. Search runs across ingredients and staff.

That screen is the audit trail. Any stock level can be explained by reading the movements behind it.

Adding a stock entry

Add Stock Entry:

1. Choose the Transaction Type — stock in, stock out, waste or transfer.
2. Select Item.
3. Enter the Quantity.
4. Then, depending on type:
   • Stock In — supplier, Unit Purchase Price, Expiry Date, entry date and time.
   • Waste — a Waste Reason.
   • Transfer — the Target Branch and the target inventory item.

Recording waste properly

Waste takes a reason, and the reasons are the useful part:

Reason	Typical cause
Expiry	Went out of date.
Spoilage	Went off early.
Customer Complaint	Sent back, remade.
Over Preparation	Prepped more than sold.
Other	With a note.

Each points at a different fix. Expiry means you're ordering too much or rotating badly. Over preparation means your prep sheets are wrong. Complaints mean something in the kitchen needs attention.

Record waste as it happens, not at the end of the week. A bin emptied at 11 pm is a number nobody can reconstruct the next morning — and waste that isn't recorded shows up anyway, as an unexplained discrepancy at the next count.

Transfers between branches

A transfer moves stock from one branch to another: out of the source, into the target's matching item.

Both sides are recorded, so neither branch's numbers go wrong. Enter it at the time the crate actually moves.

Counting

Recipes are estimates, waste gets missed, and a small drift accumulates. A physical count is how you reset to truth.

The process:

1. Count when the kitchen is closed. Mid-service counting is fiction.
2. Count by category, so it can be split across people and done in sections.
3. Write the counts on paper first, then enter them. Don't count with the screen open — you'll see what it expects and drift toward it.
4. Enter the difference as a stock entry: stock in where you have more, stock out or waste where you have less.
5. Note why, if you know.

How often

• Weekly — high-value and fast-moving lines: meat, fish, spirits.
• Monthly — everything else.
• Always at period end if you report on stock value.

Counting everything monthly and your expensive lines weekly is the shape most restaurants settle into. It's a reasonable trade between effort and accuracy.

Reading a discrepancy

A count that doesn't match isn't a mistake in the software. It's information:

Gap	Usually means
Consistently short on one item	Recipe quantity is under-stated, or portions are heavy.
Short on high-value items only	Worth investigating properly.
Short across the board	Waste isn't being recorded.
Long on an item	Recipe over-states it, or a delivery was received twice.
Wildly out on one item	Wrong unit somewhere — a kg entered as a gram.

The usage report tells you the same thing without waiting for a count — see Inventory reports.

Low stock and expiry warnings

Inventory Stocks shows the current position, with counts of items below threshold and out of stock.

A daily inventory summary email can go out listing items that are low, out of stock, or nearing expiry, per branch. Turn it on and it becomes the morning's ordering list without anyone opening the system.

If the email is noise, the thresholds are wrong, not the email. See Items, categories and units.

Good to know

• Movements record who made them. That's why every entry is worth doing under the right login.
• Stock entries can be backdated with an entry date and time — for a delivery recorded the morning after.
• Waste refunds on an order also affect inventory. See Refunds and cancellations.
• Batch stock is counted separately under batch inventory, and expires on its own schedule. See Recipes and batch recipes.

Next

Inventory reports