When you work in a restaurant, numbers can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Some days, they can be both.

When profits are up, customer satisfaction rates are high, your balance sheet works out, and your inventory is in line, there’s no reason not to smile. However, poor record keeping and tracking of your restaurant’s metrics lead to stressful nights of digging through receipts and scouring your back room for that one inventory sheet that you’ve misplaced.

Food stocktaking in your restaurant and how your price points, profitability, and long-term planning should all be based on the accurate tracking of your stock. In this article we will cover some of the ways restaurateurs track their restaurant stock and why a simple stocktaking spreadsheet is just not enough.

We hate to break this to you, but (there is always a but!) if you still track and manage your inventory with tangible notepad, a pen or pencil, and a piece of paper, it’s time to move on to bigger and better things.

While it maybe a system you are used to and has worked for you, this article hopes to shine the light on why it is time to reconsider when it comes to restaurant stock tracking.

When it comes to using a digital restaurant stocktaking sheet you should have no reservations about embracing this when you see why it will greatly benefit your business to do so and how easy it really os to do. This is an instance of you using technology to the benefit of yourself and your business to save time and money.

Some of the the biggest problems with a handwritten inventory spreadsheet include:

• The difficulty of adjusting your inventory records.
• The inability to draw conclusions based on data.
• Stressful or poorly-constructed menu engineering campaigns.

It can be very difficult to see the trends of your restaurant sales, profits, and stock variance when using the paper and pen method. By upgrading you can enjoy the benefit of trend information in a clear and timely format.

What happens when you have to alter your stock sheet, how many times have you had to vigorously erase a number or cross it out because you had written it in pen? One minor alteration in your stocktake could result in that entire sheet becoming useless.

This kind of stocktake tracking adds hours to your day and removes you from more important tasks in your restaurant, especially when one of your managers makes the mistakes of entering the wrong thing in the wrong place.

If you have moved from using a notebook-based inventory spreadsheet to a digital one – like Excel or Google Sheets – you’re on a better path towards smarter stocktaking management.

However, there are still some time-consuming problems with this method.

Much like tracking inventory with pen and paper, using a computer spreadsheet outside of your point of sale system requires manual entry of all inventory adjustments. With computer-based sheets, last-minute inventory changes won’t cause you to go into a nervous breakdown.

Here are some of the potential downsides:

• Manual entry – on a computer or on paper – is time-consuming, leading some restaurateurs to shy away from inventory tracking altogether.
• The sheet is not fully associated with the items in your actual POS, meaning your inventory sheet could be inaccurate.
• Without a direct connection, it’s more difficult to track where every ounce of food goes.
• There’s no two-way communication between your system and your inventory sheet, so there’s no direct tie-in with sales, what’s coming in, and what’s going out.
• It’s tough to do menu engineering without concrete and accurate data on your inventory usage and waste.

With these said, your restaurant may need a better solution.

If you would like a better system of stocktaking management then look no further than synergy stocktaking’s full service package. You will be able to hand off your stocktaking needs to a company that has over ten years experience in delivering incredible through and accurate stocktaking services to businesses just like yours.

As well as the core stocktaking service you will also be provided a full suite of reports to help you make well informed decisions regarding your business that will let your business be more profitable.

Hope you enjoyed the above information and you begin using e-mail marketing to boost your business. If your premises needs help with food or drink stocktaking then call the professionals at Synergy Stocktaking and find out how we can help keep the cash in your business!