How do I do a stock count in my restaurant?

To count stock, pick a fixed time before deliveries arrive, freeze movement, and count every item area by area in the same unit your team uses to handle it. Write the quantity on a sheet, with a blank for "not counted" and 0 for "none". Then compare each count to what your records say you should hold. The gap is where the useful information is. Below: the steps, a sample sheet, and what to do with the numbers.

Key takeaways

• Count at a fixed time before deliveries, in one unit per item, with two people.

• A blank means not counted. A 0 means you looked and there is none.

• Expected minus counted is your variance. Recount odd lines first, then check missed movements, unrecorded waste and recipe drift.

• Log waste as it happens with a reason, so a gap is not read as theft or error.

How do you count inventory in a restaurant, step by step?

To count inventory in a restaurant, stop all stock movement, split the stores into areas, and count each area in the same fixed order every time. Write what you see, by weight for open packs and by the case for sealed ones, then compare the count with what the system expected.

What do I need before I start counting?

You need four things: a fixed time, a list of items, a unit for each item, and two people. Do not start without all four.

• A fixed time. Count at the same point every cycle, ideally before the morning delivery arrives and before service. If stock keeps moving while you count, the numbers are already wrong.

• An item list. Use one list for the whole kitchen. If the same product is named three ways, you will count it three times.

• One unit per item. Count in the unit your team handles: sacks of flour, cases of cream, litres of oil, grams of saffron. Write the unit on the sheet so nobody guesses.

• Two people. One counts, one writes. Rotate who counts so nobody marks their own work.

The eight steps

Follow these eight steps in order.

1. Stop movement. No deliveries received, no transfers out, no waste dumped until the count ends. If you cannot stop it, write down what moved and when.

2. Tidy first. Put like with like. Face the labels out. Open boxes go in front of sealed ones.

3. Split by area. Dry store, chilled, freezer, bar and packaging. Give each area its own sheet and its own counter.

4. Count in a fixed order. Left to right, top to bottom, the same path every time. A fixed path means nothing gets skipped.

5. Write what you see. Count open packs by weight or volume, and sealed packs by the case. Do not round up.

6. Mark blanks correctly. Leave a line blank if you did not count it. Write 0 only if you looked and the shelf is empty.

7. Check old stock. Note anything near its date or damaged. That feeds waste, not the count.

8. Hand in the sheet. Initial it and date it. Someone other than the counter enters it or reviews it.

Count fast movers and costly items more often than dry goods. Do a full count at month-end. For how counts fit the wider system across branches, see restaurant inventory management.

What does a stock count sheet look like?

A good sheet has seven columns: item, area, unit, expected, counted, difference and initials. The example numbers below are made up to show the layout. They are not Wady data.

Two rules make this sheet honest. The saffron line stays blank because nobody counted it. It is not zero. And the "Expected" column is filled from your records, not from memory: what you opened with, plus what you received, minus what you used, wasted or sent out.

What do I do with the difference between counted and expected?

Expected minus counted is your variance. Read it as a question to answer, because it points at one of a few causes. Check them in this order, cheapest first.

1. A typing or counting slip. 336 typed as 0.336 is a real error from a Qatar operator, and every report after it was quietly wrong. Recount any line that looks odd before you decide anything.

2. A missed movement. A delivery that was never entered, a transfer to another outlet that was not confirmed, or a production run nobody recorded. The stock is somewhere, just not on paper.

3. Waste nobody wrote down. Spoiled, dropped, trimmed, over-portioned. See the next section.

4. Recipe drift. The recipe says 100 grams and the cook uses 200. Chefs and cost controllers in Qatar describe this in almost the same words.

5. Real loss. Only after the first four are cleared.

Look at the biggest differences by value first. Four missing packs of cream matter more than one missing sack of flour if the cream costs more per unit. The sample sheet shows why: a +6 on chicken points to a missed entry or a miscount. WRAP, a UK food waste charity, publishes guidance on measuring and reporting food waste in hospitality and food service that helps businesses see where savings are. Stock across outlets is covered in restaurant inventory management.

How do I record and handle waste?

Record waste as it happens, with a reason, in the same unit as the count. A waste entry needs the item, the quantity, the reason and the date. "Lettuce, 300 gm, spoiled, left out overnight" is a usable line. "Some veg" is not. The UN reports that 1.05 billion tonnes of food, about 19 percent of what was available, was wasted worldwide in 2022 (UN Sustainable Development Goal 12). In Qatar, the Ministry of Municipality and Qatar University signed an agreement to study agricultural loss and food waste in support of the National Food Security Strategy 2030.

Use a short list of reasons your team agrees on, for example spoiled, dropped, expired, over-prepared, returned. Then a month of entries answers real questions: which item, which reason, which shift. Logging a whole shift's waste in one sitting is faster than logging item by item, and it is more likely to happen.

Waste is also why your count and your expected number differ. Without a waste log, every gap looks like theft or error. With one, you can subtract the known losses and look at what is left.

What do the numbers tell me about cost?

Your counts and waste log show where food cost moved and why. Opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock gives you what you actually used. Compare that to what your recipes say you should have used. The gap is variance, and it is cost. Pricing the dish is covered in how to price menu items from food cost.

Three things to watch:

• Stock value. Counted quantity times the latest price paid. If prices moved, the same shelf is worth a different amount.

• Waste cost. Quantity wasted times price, grouped by reason and item. It shows which habit costs the most.

• Use versus recipe. If an item is used faster than the recipes explain, you have drift, waste or a missed movement.

For the arithmetic of turning this into a percentage, see how to calculate food cost. This page stops at the point where you have a clean count and a waste log.

Why do paper and spreadsheet counts fall apart?

They work for one small kitchen. They break when the count has to meet purchasing and recipes. Operators in Qatar describe the same pattern: the answer exists but sits in five places, the chef's memory, a WhatsApp group, the delivery book, one laptop spreadsheet and a supplier invoice three weeks late. The monthly count never matches the system, and nobody can say why.

Paper is a good place to start. Once you run more than one outlet, or want to know why a number moved, you need more. See what a central kitchen is if you cook for several outlets.

How Wady Central helps with stock counts and waste

Wady Central is Wady's paid system for stock, purchasing, recipes and costing. It is built in Qatar for one café up to a multi-branch group with a central kitchen. Counts and waste are one of its feature areas. See counts and waste. See the pricing page for the plans.

What Wady Central does

What it does, from the product:

• Count on paper or on screen, in sacks and grams.

• Blank means not counted. Only 0 means none.

• Review differences, likely typos first.

• A shift's waste in one entry, with your own reasons.

• Waste cost by period, reason and item.

Every stock movement lands on one list, each line with its reason and the document behind it. A count is one of the movement types on that list, next to received, wastage, production and outlet orders, so a count correction is dated and visible, not buried. Negative balances are flagged, never hidden. See stock.

The same data feeds costing. Recipes are costed on usable yield after trim, and re-costed the moment a price moves. See recipes and costing. The Daily Brief reads the records each morning and prices its findings in riyals. One example in the product shows "5 items not counted in over 6 weeks, QAR 290.40 on the shelf nobody checked". Every figure in it is arithmetic on recorded movements, nothing is estimated. See control and reports.

What Wady Central does not do

What it does not do: it does not replace your POS or accounting. Wady Central works alongside them. It does not count for you, someone still walks the shelves. You can export all your data any day, free. Over 100 businesses in Qatar already use Wady, including Crave Holdings and OMC.

FAQ about restaurant stock counts

How often should a restaurant count stock?

Count on a fixed schedule, and count costly and fast-moving items more often than dry goods. Do a full count at month-end so the month can close. Pick the same day and time each cycle, before the delivery arrives.

Should I count blind, without looking at the expected number?

Yes where you can. Count first, then compare. If the counter sees the expected number, they tend to confirm it. Wady Central lets you count on paper or on screen and then review the differences.

What is the difference between a blank and a zero on a count sheet?

A blank means not counted. A zero means you looked and there is none. They mean different things, and mixing them hides items nobody checked. Wady Central keeps them separate.

What do I do if the count is far off the system?

Recount the lines that look odd first, since typing slips are the cheapest cause. Then check for missed deliveries, unconfirmed transfers, unrecorded waste and recipe drift. See the steps above.

Do I need software to do a stock count?

No. A paper sheet works for one small kitchen. Software helps when you have several outlets, or when you want counts, waste and recipe cost to agree with each other.

See counts and waste on your own setup

Message the Wady team and we will show you how a count, a waste entry and a recipe cost connect, on your own items. See Wady Central.