How to keep a track of inventory
Taking the inventory is a not so popular task at the restaurants. The most critical thing is to control the food costs and improve profitability. Managing a restaurant is very difficult and has several challenges.
Thursday April 20, 2017 , 4 min Read
The experienced managers know that is important to have as many procedures and policies as possible because something is going to pop up always to demand its attention. As the restaurant margins are quite slim, so the cost control is a major concern. The food cost is the largest expense after labour for restaurants. Therefore, the restaurants have tight inventory control policies.
* You should verify the inventory as you should know where you stand. If you have any plan to delegate responsibility for inventory control, perform the initial count by yourself.
* Establish your company policies for inventory control. Just make sure you have the accurate inventory records and one party is responsible for the inventory management.
* Investigate significantly variances and confirm the expected usage. The restaurants track the accurate number of the items that is sold each day. So it has a quite good idea of what ingredients are used and how it should affect the inventory. Inventory variances are also a part make future plans.
Inventory management software is easy to succeed with, easy to use and easy to implement. You can add products quickly to the inventory by using the barcode scanner, by printing labels and bulk import. You can make the software work by sorting inventory by categories, items, departments and more. You can save your time and effort by not doing it manually.The system will update the inventory counts automatically when sale made for effortless and accurate reporting. It will help to increase the accuracy, efficiency and productivity in reporting. The software will make the inventory ordering easier, cost effective and efficient. It will also transfer the inventory from one place to another.
To keep a good record is very confusing and difficult. When you are tracking sales, payments or inventory manually then you should worry about the basic human errors, misplaced records and wasted time. The inventory management software will take care of all these work with automatic inventory tracking based on POS, manual or e-commerce sales.Reporting and analytics are one of the most important features of inventory management which helps in restaurant operations. The raw material usage and sales reports help to forecast and make future plans.
To keep a good record is very confusing and difficult. When you are tracking sales, payments or inventory manually then you should worry about the basic human errors, misplaced records and wasted time. The inventory management software will take care of all these work with automatic inventory tracking based on POS, manual or e-commerce sales.Reporting and analytics are one of the most important features of inventory management which helps in restaurant operations. The raw material usage and sales reports help to forecast and make future plans.
If you are making restaurant inventory sheet then this is how it should look. It should include:
* Inventory quantity
* Quantity sold
* Item description
* Remaining quantity
* Quantity received
* Total
Some tips that will help you to improve the inventory accuracy at the restaurant:
* Before taking inventory, clean out and then organise the stock area. If the items have expired, throw out. Move the similar items to the shelf and tidy up.
* Use at least 2 people to take the inventory. Count the items separately and compare the results for anomalies.
* Take inventory before the new shipment arrives. Then add the new stocks to the counts. When the deliveries are made, do not try to take inventory. Then the items will end up as double counted.
* Take inventory before your restaurant opens or after it is closed. When the goods are sold, you cannot take the exact inventory.
* When taking inventory, ensure the items are used on FIFO (First In, First Out) basis. The older items should be rotated to the front of the shelves so that those goods are used first.
* Standardise what is the unit cost. As the price of many items changes week to week. You should use the latest price that is paid as standard.
The most critical part of the inventory puzzle is the consistency. Taking inventory at the same time, using the same stuff and to count the same items are the easiest ways to improve the accuracy. By outfitting the restaurant with reliable and affordable restaurant inventory software, you will get the exact count.
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