Key points
- A stock count covers everything in the storeroom, chiller, freezer, bar, and kitchen once a month. The daily check counts only key ingredients.
- While you count, stop sales, prep, and deliveries. Use recipe units, weigh or measure opened packs, and put two people in each area.
- Multiply each difference by its unit price, then trace causes from the biggest value down: recipes, unrecorded waste, deliveries, transfers between outlets, or missing stock.
- In Kazeer, ingredient stock goes down automatically with each sale, so as long as every menu item has a recipe, the stock left in Inventory is the number you compare your count with.
Picture this: it's the end of the month. Your report shows a reasonable gross profit, but you seem to have spent more on ingredients than usual. Your daily stock check covers only a few key ingredients, so nobody knows which items went faster than they should have.
A monthly stock count (in Indonesia, often called stock opname) finds out. You count everything you have, compare it with the stock your records say should be there, then put a rupiah value on the difference.
How a stock count differs from the daily check
The daily stock check counts the five to ten ingredients your best sellers can't be made without. Its job is to tell you when to order. The guide to daily ingredient stock checks covers it.
A stock count matches what's in the storeroom, chiller, freezer, bar, and kitchen against your stock records. So you count everything, including cups and lids, ingredients you rarely use, and opened packs. It takes longer, so once a month is enough.
Prepare for count day
- Pick the same time every month, such as after closing on the last day of the month or before opening on the 1st, so you can compare the results.
- While you count, stop sales, prep, incoming deliveries, and transfers to other outlets. If a delivery arrives anyway, set it aside unopened.
- Organize the count sheet by storage location, in the order you walk: dry storage, chiller, freezer, bar, then kitchen. Within each location, list items in the order they sit on the shelves.
- Use the recipe units, such as grams, ml, or pieces, not cartons or packs. For example, 12 one-liter cartons of UHT milk go down as 12,000 ml.
- Weigh or measure opened packs instead of estimating them as you would in the daily check. Measure liquids such as milk and syrup with a measuring jug, because the recipe uses ml. For reusable containers, weigh each empty one once, write its weight on it, and subtract that from what the scale shows.
- Put two people in each area: one counts, one writes.
The count sheet needs only the item name, the unit, the count, and notes. Leave the expected stock off the sheet. A counter who can see the number on record tends to copy it without really counting.
How to count
- Count area by area, shelf by shelf.
- Write each number with its unit. Anything that isn't on the sheet goes on the blank lines at the bottom.
- Count damaged or expired items separately and mark them. They aren't usable stock. How to prevent them is in the guide to FIFO and FEFO.
- Count prepared ingredients, such as milk already in a pitcher at the bar, in the unit of the original ingredient.
- When an area is done, someone from another area recounts a few expensive items, such as coffee beans. If the numbers differ, count them again together.
Compare with the expected stock
Expected stock is what you'd have if ingredients were used only according to the recipes:
- Expected stock = opening stock + stock received − usage by recipe (with more than one outlet, add transfers in and subtract transfers out)
- Usage by recipe = portions sold × portion size, added up across every menu item that uses the ingredient
- Difference = counted − expected stock
- Value of the difference = difference × unit price
Opening stock is last month's count. You get the unit price from your receipts: purchase price divided by pack size, as in the guide to COGS (cost of goods sold) per menu item.
If you use Kazeer, ingredient stock goes down automatically with each sale. As long as every menu item has a recipe, the stock left in Kazeer's Inventory is the number you compare your count with. Stock is managed per outlet, so compare outlet by outlet.
Example: The numbers in this table are an example for one cafe, not real business data. The unit prices are the sample prices from the COGS guide.
| Item | Expected stock | Counted | Difference | Unit price | Value of difference |
|---|
| Coffee beans | 4,200 g | 3,950 g | −250 g | Rp200/g | −Rp50,000 |
| UHT milk | 18,000 ml | 15,600 ml | −2,400 ml | Rp18/ml | −Rp43,200 |
| Palm sugar syrup | 3,500 ml | 3,150 ml | −350 ml | Rp40/ml | −Rp14,000 |
| Plastic cups | 320 pcs | 300 pcs | −20 pcs | Rp600 each | −Rp12,000 |
| Cup lids | 320 pcs | 330 pcs | +10 pcs | Rp150 each | +Rp1,500 |
| Total | | | | | −Rp117,700 |
How to read the first row: 3,950 g − 4,200 g = −250 g, so you're 250 g of coffee beans short, worth 250 × Rp200 = Rp50,000. The four items that came up short add up to Rp50,000 + Rp43,200 + Rp14,000 + Rp12,000 = Rp119,200. The lids are Rp1,500 over, so the total is Rp117,700 short.
Sort by value, not by quantity. The 2,400 ml of milk looks like the biggest gap, but the 250 g of coffee beans is worth more. An overage, like the lids, needs a cause too, because it can mean a record is wrong.
Note: The difference at your first count can be large, because it covers everything since you started recording stock. If your comparison number doesn't start from last month's count, this month's difference still includes the old one. Work out the new difference item by item: say coffee beans are 250 g short this month and were 200 g short last month, so the new shortfall is 50 g.
Find the cause of each difference
Recount any item with a big difference first, because a counting mistake is the quickest fix. If the number holds, check the causes below.
The recipe doesn't match the real portion
The sign: a shortfall every month in ingredients used across many menu items, such as milk and coffee beans. Weigh the portions your barista makes and compare them with the recipe. How to keep portions consistent is in our article on ingredient waste. Check new menu items or toppings without a written recipe too: their ingredients get used but never counted.
Waste isn't written down
The sign: a shortfall in ingredients that spoil quickly or often get remade. Waste never becomes a sale, so it never comes off the expected stock. A waste log shows how much of the difference is already explained.
Deliveries not recorded, or the wrong unit
A delivery nobody records makes your count higher than the expected stock. A wrong unit at receiving makes an odd-looking difference, often a multiple of the pack size. Say a case of 12 one-liter cartons of milk is recorded as 1 carton: your count comes out 11,000 ml over. Match every receipt from the month against your record of stock received.
Transfers between outlets without a record
The sign: one outlet is over and another is short by about the same amount. Compare differences across outlets before you look for other causes, and record every transfer at both outlets.
Missing stock
If you've checked the causes above and the shortfall keeps showing up, especially on small, expensive items, someone may be taking them. Don't accuse anyone right away. Count that item once a week to see when the difference appears, and limit who holds the storeroom key. Limit who can change stock records too. In Kazeer, staff access is set per task and per outlet.
Where Kazeer helps
Counting the shelves is still a job for people. Kazeer helps with the records:
- Kazeer's Inventory holds your list of items and ingredients. That's where you check stock and see what's left.
- All your outlets are in one account, and you can move items to the outlet that needs them. Move them in Kazeer every time stock goes to another outlet. See the multi-outlet section.
- After a transaction, Kazeer AI sends a low-stock or out-of-stock alert to the owner and store admins.
- You can also ask Kazeer AI on the web or in WhatsApp, for example "Which items should I check?" ("Barang apa yang perlu dicek?"; Kazeer AI mostly replies in Indonesian). If the answer doesn't match the shelf, find out why. See example questions for Kazeer AI.
After the count
A shortfall that's left after you've fixed counting mistakes, wrongly recorded deliveries, and transfers between outlets is ingredient cost that isn't in the COGS in your report. COGS in Kazeer's reports is recorded from every sale, while ingredients thrown out or gone missing are never sold. If the whole difference in the example really happened that month, your real gross profit is Rp117,700 lower than the report shows, and so is your real net profit. How to read both is in the guide to gross and net profit.
Before the next count:
- Bring bar portions back to the recipe, or update the recipe if the portion really has changed.
- Start a waste log if you don't have one.
- Write each item's difference in one monthly table. Put items that come up short or over two months in a row first.
- Count items with a big difference once a week until you find the cause.
- If a small difference keeps showing up on the same ingredient, add it to the waste line in your COGS calculation.
- Use the count as next month's opening stock, and keep the count sheets.