Madeline Peters wrote:Thanks. Do most restaurants track inventory manually? I think it would be great to have a handheld device that would just count inventory but not be part of a big POS system. Something really simple. Right now the kitchen counts everything once a week then we have to enter those numbers into an excel sheet. Takes time and adds another step to the process.
Most places I've worked do inventory monthly for the reasons you described above. I can't imagine you guys having that much stuff on hand where you would want to do it weekly due to your small kitchen and storage spaces.
I have 25+ years in the industry and I've always done it the old fashioned way by physically counting cans, boxes and bags. Using a barcode scanner might help knock it out a little faster, but I personally don't think it's worth the expense. And setting up the system would be burdensome.
That being said, there are couple tricks that make it an easier task.
I update the prices of what we received once a week on the inventory spread sheet. But for me that isn't that big of a deal as most of my products have bid pricing that only change once a year. So mostly I'm changing produce prices as they fluctuate greatly.
I also do a separate inventory for food and one for disposables(paper products, chemicals, etc.)
I have my inventory sheet arranged "geographically" so to speak. So when I print off the sheet to enter what I have on the shelves, I don't have to flip through 30 pages trying to find where the item I'm trying to count is. I start in the freezer and work my way around through the walk-in, then the dry storage room and my coffee station. Then I do my disposables. I also just carry over a set amount from month to month on certain things like dried spices and ISS salad dressings and the like. This stuff turns over pretty quick and I'm not counting partials of eaches for the 30 different dried spices and seasonings and the 9 different salad dressing packets that I keep on hand.
This system works great as long as everything gets put away in the same spot! It usually takes me about an hour to count and enter everything.
If your doing it right you'll notice that your inventory shouldn't really fluctuate too much from month to month.
Also, it helps if you total all your invoices and add that total to what your starting inventory value is. It gives you a more accurate food cost than just subtracting your invoices from the inventory which a lot of places do. At previous jobs, I used to get quarterly bonuses based on food and labor %, so I always tracked it pretty close.
Something like this
Previous Month Ending Inventory $8,074.96
Value of Purchased Food Receive(+) $7,621.20
Total Available (=) $15,696.16
Adjustments: Spoilage/Damage (-) $47.65
Current Ending Inventory (-) $10,143.90
Purchased Food Used (=) $5,504.61
As you can see above, if I was trying to figure my food cost off of what I just received, rather than what I actually used, there would have been a $2,100 and several % point difference of what my food cost percentage should be.
This kind of difference month to month is rare for me however, I was out on jury duty for two weeks and I'm going to The Masters next week so I stocked up pretty good so they wouldn't run out of anything, as no one will order anything in my absence.
Unfortunately, jury duty fell on the end of the month, so I had to count all the extra stuff I had on hand so that explains the big difference in my inventory from last month.
The same thing happens at most places at Derby time because you have to bring in a bunch of stuff at the end of the month.
Last edited by Dan Thomas on Fri Apr 05, 2013 11:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
