Restaurant Inventory Management Tips

Do you want to deliver your groceries on time and develop your restaurant business? ?  here are the top 50 restaurant inventory management tips for 2021.

Managing restaurants comes with many challenges, and one of the most important is knowing how to track restaurant inventory. Inventory management is the management of stocks and stocks. As part of supply chain management, inventory management includes aspects such as controlling and supervising the order of inventory, stocking inventory and controlling the quantity of goods for sale. .

With your low margin, controlling costs is the key to your success. and ultimately more profit. Since food and labor are typically your biggest expense, having a restaurant inventory management process and policy for your business is imperative.

How important is restaurant inventory?

The main goal of an inventory is to measure the amount of product your restaurant uses over time, compare it to your sales, and study the gap between production costs and sales. Managing inventory in restaurants is also very important in keeping your store tidy as well as reducing the waste of ingredients and resources.

The importance of inventory management cannot be overstated in the restaurant business. Your food inventory plan keeps everything in place, organizes and ties them together, and one little oversight can make a drastic difference in your business.

Tracking your kitchen inventory leads to more informed planning and decision making. If you don’t track inventory effectively, your forecast can be wrong, making your purchase orders inaccurate, wasting time, resources, and money.

Even though some managers don’t see inventory management as important, it’s a big deal. Statistically, 16% of your food ends up in the trash. 75% of employees say they stole from their employer at some point, which is 7% of your income. And restaurants that regularly take inventory can increase their profits by up to 24% per year.

Here are more reasons to regularly inventory restaurants.

and. Inventory management plays a very important role in all aspects of your restaurant – from the purchase orders you place to the customer orders you take. Since that part of the job will always be there, taking the time to figure out how to take inventory and adopt inventory management software is a worthwhile investment.

b. Know Your Financial Situation:  Measuring the financial health of a restaurant business goes far beyond knowing your bank account amount. This number will not tell you how much of a product you have on hand or how much of those products are available.

With an efficient inventory, you can easily calculate the numbers you need to understand the financial health of your business… for example, the cost of goods sold. Compared to income, cost of goods sold gives you a better idea of ​​your bottom line.

You can use this simple formula:

• (Cost of Goods Sold + Cost of Labor) / Total Sales = Cost
• If the number you get is over 60% … you’re in trouble.

c) Track planned inventory usage: this is  typically the same number of items used in the pantry on a weekly basis. Therefore, unless a special event occurs, you will need to find out why there has been a significant change in the amount of supplies that have been used in the pantry. With the help of regular restaurant equipment, you can:

• immediately detect significant increases or decreases in food intake
• increase order volume to avoid shortages
• Reduce the order to avoid excess

re. Reduce food waste. Food waste affects both the success of restaurants and society as a whole. In the United States alone, an estimated 133 billion pounds of food was wasted in 2010 alone. And, despite rigorous strategies to combat this trend, that number has remained relatively unchanged since then. However, the truth remains the same: No matter how hard you try, before you can use them, there will always be supplies going wrong. But you must do your best to reduce this loss for the well-being of your restaurant.

The first step to reducing waste is figuring out your waste level… which you can’t do without a reliable inventory. The average waste rate is 3.11% for a full service restaurant. If you do your math and find that the average wastage rate is greater than 3.11 percent, then you are wasting food and therefore losing money.

e. Anti-Theft:  As much as you trust your employees, there’s no denying that there’s a good chance you can hire a rotten egg that will try to rob you. American businesses lose $ 40 billion to $ 400 billion a year to employee theft. This theft leads to the collapse of 50% of all businesses.

By continuously recording and investigating obvious violations, you can reduce and even catch theft. Nothing rewards a thief more than knowing that there is no system on earth to test his actions. As an added bonus, collecting and visually inspecting your inventory can be the limiting factor that prevents employees from putting anything in their bags for the rest of their shift.

F. Overorder Prevention:  As mentioned earlier, loss is a big problem for many restaurant businesses. Of course, you don’t want your back room to be empty. But you also don’t want the content in your backroom to represent a disproportionate percentage of your restaurant’s capital. By taking a regular inventory, you can know the number of products you need and thus avoid over-orders.

With this in mind, it is clear that inventory management is very important to the success of the restaurant business. Knowing the right time to restock certain items, how many items to buy, how much to pay, when to sell, and at what price can be a difficult choice without the right information.

Considering the significant costs and benefits of inventory, restaurants spend a lot of time trying to determine what constitutes the optimal level of inventory that should be maintained at all times to avoid having too much or too little inventory. inventory at any given time.

Here are 50 of the best guaranteed restaurant inventory management tips and tricks to help your business.

50 Best Restaurant Inventory Management Tips for 2021

1. Start with the critical elements

Your menu is a very important part of your catering business and therefore a good starting point for inventory management. There are probably several top selling items on your menu (especially the high value but low value ones), so you can’t afford to mismanage the inventory required for these items. You need to have the “tightest” control over your critical elements. These items should be inventoried every shift and at least every day.

2. Define the Pars for each element. In inventory, “by” is the level at which inventory is replenished. The definition of par allows you to keep enough inventory so that you don’t run out of what you need. Many transactions equate daily sales and delivery times to ensure a business is never without these critical elements.

Just knowing how much you have on hand doesn’t matter unless you tie that number to your production. and sales. Be sure to add the denomination to your invoice so you know when and how much to order. It will also help you keep track of your sales teams.

3. Set up a restaurant inventory management process: take the  time to set up the process and stick to it! Determine the best time to take inventory related to your ordering and shipping process. Remember to take the time to take the inventory or hold your managers accountable for completing the inventory. Remember that the more complex and varied your menu, the more important it is that the inventory be correct.

4. Use accounting software for restaurant inventory management:  While you can still think of it as pen and paper, it is very important that you enter it into software related to your sales. The restaurant business has become too complex and too long to try and track inventory with a hand tool like pen and paper. Invest in good software and you won’t regret it.

Set up a software-based inventory management system – Even if you only run a small restaurant, you will have at least a few dozen items in your inventory, and in large operations there may be several hundreds. The real convenience of the software inventory system is the automatic calculation function, and with the help of the software you can set orders that will be triggered at certain stock levels.

5. Drive yourself up and do a spot check  . Once you have established an inventory control process, first be sure to complete the process yourself. Then, when your team is in charge of inventory, review the process at the intervals that work best for you, whether monthly or quarterly. Remember, your inventory is your sales that haven’t gone through the ledger yet, so be sure to keep an eye out for what’s in the back of the house.

With good management, you should have enough inventory on Ruka that you can cook everything on the menu, but not too much to spoil the food. It can also prevent you or your employees from being “tempted” by the “good deals” your suppliers are doing – check your inventory and usage before purchasing this “deal”.

6. Train your inventory staff. Putting a clipboard or inventory software in the hands of any employee and sending it back to the warehouse is a recipe for disaster. Inventory management cannot be entirely one-person, especially in corporate restaurants or multi-site businesses. Managers and team leaders should provide detailed inventory reports whenever they fail and alert the team of any major outages or issues.

This responsibility also falls on your chefs and service staff, who should take note of spills, bugs and rotten food whenever they encounter them. Teaching your employees to become inventory specialists or specialist mathematicians can be tricky, but it’s easier if you enable an easy-to-use inventory system for your employees.

To maximize the consistency and reliability of your inventory, you will need two to three people on your inventory team. Pick some of your most detail-oriented employees and “promote” them to inventory status.

Once you’ve made your choice, take the time to teach them how to properly manage inventory. From there, select a few of your in-house order takers and warehousing experts to make sure the processes running on-site are working as expected.

Once your well-formed group is up and running, refine the process further. Distribute the different inventory responsibilities among your key personnel and assign team members to the following inventory tasks:

• Warehouse organization
• Receive orders
• Inventory calculation
• Price search
• Calculate the cost of goods sold
• Send financial reports

By assigning these tasks, you’ve just created your own list of points people ask for when you need an inventory question answered.

7. Track Your  Sales Every Day  :  Even though it’s just a five-minute daily snapshot leading to a weekly deepening of your data, it’s best to track restaurant sales every day. When you check sales daily rather than weekly, biweekly or monthly, you stay on top of immediate changes in your restaurant so you can make quick and timely adjustments to inventory planning and scheduling. delivery of groceries.

For example, if you have a seasonal item that you plan to remove from your menu, you can easily see when it is gradually fading away in the eyes of your customers rather than removing it from your menu too early or too early. …

Of course, tracking sales and analyzing data can be quite tricky if you don’t have the right technology. Instead of calculating everything manually from an inventory card or shrugging and guessing intuitively, make sure you can access the data right from your point of sale. This way you can identify the discrepancies and try to determine the source of the loss.

8. Bring inventory just in case:  your restaurant should have arrangements that are generally fast. In an emergency, you can use these additional arrangements to fulfill orders and satisfy customers. Just make sure to change it regularly in case your inventory doesn’t deteriorate by the time you start using it.

9. Start from the beginning. Start from scratch and don’t rely on what already exists on earth. Whether you are the new owner, the general manager, or the kitchen manager of the restaurant, you should check your inventory to find out where you are.

Perform this initial count yourself, even if you plan to delegate responsibility for inventory control, nothing replaces the appearance of what you have on the shelves and in the refrigerator as a basic knowledge of running your restaurant and controlling your inventory.

10. Establish a company’s inventory control policy  . Make sure there is an accurate inventory and that at least one party has specific responsibility for managing the inventory. Many restaurants today take inventory on a daily or even near real-time basis, and almost all at least once a week.

11. Set up a two-person inventory management procedure, if possible  . Not only does two pairs of eyes reduce the likelihood of anything being overlooked when counting inventory, it is also a good measure of overall safety and loss prevention. Matching reduces errors and the temptation to manipulate results or paperbacks.

12. Track your usage:  Confirm intended usage and review significant deviations. Restaurants can track the exact amount of each product on the menu that is sold each day and therefore also have a pretty good idea of ​​what ingredients are used and how this should be reflected in inventory. However, inventory differences are part of the restoration.

Sometimes an employee accidentally messes up a big batch of food, or spoilage occurs due to a canceled banquet or other scheduled request that does not materialize. However, material deviations from the intended use could constitute theft and should be investigated.

If you are managing inventory for a larger restaurant, consider an optical barcode scanning system or an RFID inventory control system. These systems further automate the inventory management process and make it much easier for management to track usage and investigate losses.

13. Prepare a point of sale to track your inventory. First of all, you need to enter each ingredient that goes into your meal. You can sell cheeseburgers and milkshakes, but you buy beef, cheese, ice cream, and milk (among other things). Determine the minimum levels for each ingredient and check with your suppliers.

When stocks are getting low, the point of sale can alert you to this fact and even generate a reorderable purchase order ready to sign up. Adding all menu items comes second as they will be based on recipes using your ingredients. By doing this, your point of sale can automatically update the amount of any ingredient in the foods you sell.

14. Prepare your staff (or yourself) for the inventory procedure:  If everyone is to at least be aware of the procedures and expectations, you should make sure that one or two people are responsible for them, as mentioned. previously.

For even better results, make sure it isn’t two people. Either way, whoever manages inventory today should be who processes it tomorrow and the next day. The need for consistency extends to staff: over time, a task will run faster and easier if the same team processes it every time.

15. Summarize your environment. Now that you have everything ready for counting the outlets, you must first count them. It doesn’t matter if you counted the day before. Here you start a new diet and it is better to start from scratch, you can take inventory directly from your point of sale.

Count all that can be counted. Weigh everything that needs to be weighed. Update all quantities and save the changes. Then, and this is really important, get someone to start over. When all of your numbers match, you know you’re done.

16. Create a schedule for manual inventory and follow it. The idea of ​​a daily manual inventory might seem like a waste of time if you have a point of sale that automatically refreshes inventory with every sale, but the sales don’t reflect the big picture with inventory.

Liquid spills, wilting greens, meat can go bad, and customers can send food back. It is important to check the ingredients and see if the reality meets expectations. When you stick to your schedule, you’ll have weeks, then months, then years to go back and analyze the data.

17  . In terms of manual inventory, the quality of perishable goods should be checked daily so that you can also count them during their stay. Non-perishable items should be counted once or twice a week, depending on how quickly you browse them. You should always do this when you are closed, and preferably before you open.

It is important to stick to a schedule as your business depends on it. You can’t put it off until later, and it’s not like you can do it twice the next day to catch up with it. The more regular and reliable data you provide to your store, the better you’ll understand your purchases and usage.

18. Write down waste (and why it happens):  As mentioned before, waste can and will happen every now and then no matter how hard you try to reduce it. However, anytime food is deducted from your inventory, you need to know the reason. Most of the time, this reason is found in sales reports. But when the food is not for sale and is still taken off the market? You should also know that.

When doing manual supplies, don’t just throw away expired ingredients and update your inventory. Note the waste and add a reason. The same should be done when something is spilled or the customer returns something. Good inventory tracking isn’t just about knowing what’s on hand. When you know what you’ve wasted, you can put dollar signs on those losses and understand the consequences. When you know why you wasted it, there are steps you can take to prevent it from happening again.

20. Before accepting shipments, make sure your inventory is up to date. Whenever you know you’re going to take delivery, be sure to start with a newly confirmed invoice. This eliminates the possibility of confusion when adding new products to those already on the shelf.

20. Create sections. Is your storage divided? Do you have room for pasta, vegetables, fruit and seasonings? If you mix your groceries and dry goods, inventory management will be a bit more difficult.

Sharing storage space will not only make inventory less cumbersome, but it will also make it easier to instruct staff to get something. from the pantry. Rather than sending your employees on a scavenger hunt, a well-defined section for each article makes it easy to find articles.

21. Group similar items together. It’s easier to count boxes of mugs than it is to count shelves or individual cups, right? But for a busy worker who needs a 16-ounce cup of juice (and isn’t thinking of an inventory check later this week), opening a new drawer instead of looking for a drawer that’s already open seems like the right thing to do. fastest option. Remind staff to use open packages primarily to speed up the inventory process. And don’t forget to tell them that in the end it will also make their jobs easier.

Every now and then you’ll likely have two boxes open, but if your employees understand the importance of this process, they’ll think twice before rushing into a new box.

22. Make it a habit: A  step-by-step process improves the reliability of the inventory and improves consistency between the different recipients of the inventory. Your process should detail where inventory should start and stop. And what works for one restaurant won’t work for everyone. Choose the style that seems most appropriate to you. You can use the following options:

• Work clockwise and move around the room, starting with the door at the 12 o’clock position
• Count front to back and top to bottom
• First, we count the cooler, then move on to dry storage

You will find that if you design the system, your job will be easier to do. Once you stop your process, you can see at a glance how far your employees have progressed through the inventory process just by entering storage space.

23. Incentive:  Are you already doing all of the above and your inventory is still questionable at best? Tired of scolding someone for not counting correctly or putting them on a shelf correctly? If not, maybe him or her. Instead, try using positive reinforcement. Reward your most trusted and consistent inventors.

The incentive doesn’t always have to be in dollars and cents, giving your inventory a witty new form of shirt, or rewarding employees with a billable hour. You will likely see an increase in enthusiasm and inventory reliability.

24. Don’t ignore unused inventory: the  warehouse and pantry must be dynamic. When they’re not there, unused inventory is inactive… takes up space… costs money. Therefore, whatever you do, don’t ignore it. Taking an inventory gives you a major advantage – the ability to do something with items you have too.

Let’s say you order 2 bags of salt per week like clockwork. Rather than blindly placing an order just to pile in the warehouse, look at your inventory, adjust your order, and hold more cash. When you find your excess stock, cut that item off your next order … and leave it cut until you’ve used up most of your safety stock.

25. Avoid  food  waste :  Food is wasted. But one of the main advantages of inventory is that you can see how much you are spending. Then you have the option of reducing waste in your restaurant. Empower your employees to use excess ingredients in daily specials. They can play an active role in preventing food waste over-orders by selling specials. If you find yourself in the added case of frog legs, offer a frog with a snack to give to your visitors.

Instead of printing special menus, let your servers verbally present a special to hungry visitors. Not only will you put wasted food to good use, but you’ll also remind your employees what a restaurant can lose if over-ordered.

26. Don’t quantify:  People who feel “experienced” are more likely to estimate rather than count. For example, they might say, “It looks like about 3 dozen eggs” without actually opening the boxes.

This is totally unacceptable, the valuation inventory is unnecessary for the manager and the restaurant as a whole. Whether you’re using an Excel spreadsheet or the manual paper count method… you really have to count every item every time.

If you have the right technology on your side, you can participate in calculations with greater confidence, minimize the likelihood of miscalculations, and still have the financial indicators you need.

27. Don’t try to investigate the theft:  Even if you are not Sherlock Holmes, if your inventory suggests that one employee (or maybe two) is stealing, you must take action. The unfortunate fact is that 43% of retail losses (including the restaurant industry) are attributable to employee theft.

And shockingly, 75% of all employees report that they have been stolen from their employer at some point. So how do you know if an employee is stealing? Keep track of the difference between the cost of goods sold and how much you have available. If there is a difference, it doesn’t necessarily mean someone is stealing… your chefs may just be too harsh on the ingredient.

But that should prompt further investigation… is it food waste or theft? Of course, if the items that keep popping up are your finest bottles of wine, or even the tiniest pieces of meat, you probably have a case of employee theft.

The point is, even the best employees aren’t immune to temptation. If you’ve made your employees aware of the importance of inventory, you can see the added benefit of showing your employees that keeping an accurate inventory is a good way to keep your jobs.

28. Engage staff in inventory management at Buy-Into:  you know how important your inventory is… but does your staff know it? If your employees don’t understand how critical inventory is to the health of your restaurant, they might not go to great lengths to make sure they understand it.

Take the time to formally educate your employees on the importance and practice of inventory. Your employees need to know that having accurate numbers can improve your bottom line. And this directly affects the success of the restaurant and the safety of its operation.

29. Plan it regularly:  when do you take inventory? If your response is during downtime, that’s not enough. To make sure that the inventory is taking place, schedule an agreed time to do it each week. Maintaining a regularly established schedule improves the reliability of your inventories. Since you’re taking it at the same time of the week each week, you should see a match between the numbers. Plan your inventory for quiet times between lunch and dinner to make the process as painless as possible.

30. Inventory before delivery and after big delivery  : If your warehouse seems disorganized, you are far from alone, even if you have room for everything and everything is in place… the delivery day will be hectic. If you receive your shipments on Thursday, take inventory on Wednesday. Your salespeople will appreciate this thoughtful gesture.

31. Carry out spot checks  . You can’t count every item every day. But you can choose a few spot checks from time to time. Pick 4 particularly expensive items each week… or a few items that you seem to be constantly lacking… and inventory those items daily for a week. Spot checks are especially useful in situations where you already think some items are missing.

The information you have gathered will help you better understand when missing items may have left the kitchen. When doing spot checks you should try to be unpredictable so that your employees cannot guess the specific group of items that you are trying to inventory for.

32. Lock it in  : Treat your inventory like money because it’s actually dollars and cents. Keep your inventory safe by keeping it locked. With your inventory in a safe place, you can be sure that it is not tampered with and that your parts are as reliable as the day you received them.

What do you keep locked up? The articles that matter most to you. If your employees see you taking steps to keep your inventory safe, they’ll know how much you care … which may make them take extra care of themselves.

33. Don’t buy too much  . One of the easiest ways to financially support your restaurant is to limit supplies. But how much is enough? This question has tormented restaurateurs for years. You don’t want to tie up all your money in your inventory or risk losing a lot of money due to spoilage. But you also don’t want to miss out on your most popular foods or your most expensive proteins. It is desirable that your inventory be 1.5 times the weekly value of the items sold.

34. Automate your inventory. There is no way around this… you have to automate the inventory process. You don’t have time for paper tracing sheets or spreadsheets… especially if easy to use and affordable restaurant apps have been created in the past 5 years.

Of course, there are many ways to take inventory, but there are several universal truths to consider when choosing the best method. The tables are far from good in this modern age. There really is no other way to tell.

From tedious manual entry to tedious formula creation, spreadsheet-based inventory methods are full of tasks you just don’t have time for. The apps will make your life so much easier and more financially beneficial. By automating inventory, you can do it faster… you can do it more accurately… and you can make it so easy, anyone can do it.

Do a lot for yourself and your business using a custom inventory app or software. Saving time, simplicity, ease of reporting … all these features will make you wonder why you are waiting so long. The modern restaurateur does not need to go it alone when it comes to inventory. You can improve the efficiency and accuracy of your inventory by applying the right process and the right technology.

35. Develop a system and train all your staff. To keep the restaurant process alive in your work, teach it to all staff. Yes, you are unlikely to need all of your staff for every inventory, but the idea is that anyone can step in to help you out if needed. Specific inventory items may vary from restaurant to restaurant, but train your employees in the following versatile inventory management requirements:

• Sitting Inventory  : This is the amount of item (or dollars) that you currently have in your home. Whatever increments you use, whether it’s measurements or dollar amounts, make sure you’re consistent everywhere.
• Exhaustion  . This is the amount of product (or dollar value) that you used during a given time period. Set your windows to daily, weekly, or monthly increments and calculate them using sales data from your point of sale (POS) system.
• Usage  : This is the amount of sitting inventory (or dollars) divided by the average depletion in the specified window. So if you have 4 gallons of sauce in your inventory and your depletion rate is 1 gallon per week, the sauce usage is 4 weeks.
• Variance  : This is basically the difference between your theoretical usage (usually “calculated” by your POS) and your actual usage. So if you record your beef consumption at $ 100 per week and your selling point “predicts” $ 90, your difference is $ 90 (theoretical) – $ 100 (actual) = – $ 10 or -10%.
• Income  . This is the percentage of the product that actually counts in sales, compared to the notional amount that the POS believes should have been used. Calculate the yield by taking your theoretical usage and dividing by your actual usage. In the last example: theoretical usage is $ 90 and actual usage is $ 100 or $ 90 (theoretical) / $ 100 (actual) = $ 0.90 or 90%

36. Manage your inventory regularly and consistently. Taking inventory isn’t a chore, so don’t treat it like one! The data you collect from your inventory management efforts will shape your menu and ultimately the future strategy of your entire restaurant. All you do: be proactive, consistent, and don’t wait for almost nothing left to respond.

Always do your inventory at the same time and at the same time of the week. If you don’t, small inconsistencies will reject it between sessions. If you take inventory one month in the morning and the next in the evening, you will see inconsistencies in the data. Taking an inventory at the same time week after week will ensure that your data is as accurate and reliable as possible.

37. Make a first come, first served (FIFO) decision:  “FIFO” means “first served, first served”. It does not make sense to use new dishes for cooking when there is still a lot. FIFO suggests using the oldest foods in your inventory first so that nothing goes wrong.

These four letters are the gold standard for all restaurant inventory management and save on sedentary inventory. To use an effective FIFO strategy, label all of your food with the date you received it and the expiration date. Use products that expire earlier than others, and watch out for what will end soon.

38. Take an inventory after the restaurant closes or before it opens. You cannot take inventory accurately when the goods are sold. Whatever time you choose, stick to it. If you always take inventory on Tuesday, but sometimes do it at night and sometimes in the morning, the results will fluctuate from week to week.

39.Clean and organize storage areas before inventory:  throw away expired items, move similar items to the same shelf, and generally clean.

• If you are using a scale to weigh inventory and measure portions, calibrate them weekly.
• Standardize your unit cost. The price of many items (like ground beef) varies from week to week. Use the last price paid as standard. Easiest to find and remember

40. Raw material  management : Intelligent inventory management is essential to avoid waste. Use these points to ensure that your inventory is used efficiently.

• Try to take a minimal inventory approach to your restaurant’s inventory, especially perishables.
• In addition, ordering only when necessary avoids waste.

41. Revenue management and costing  . Standardization and management of recipes are essential for good inventory management, as they help to reduce food costs. The standard recipe lists the amount of each ingredient used; therefore, the inventory management system can easily determine the number of days the remaining inventory will be kept. The accidental use of ingredients leads to imbalances in the stock and causes the stock to dry out in advance.

Complete your recipes in point of sale software to assess raw material usage versus sales. This makes it possible to reduce restaurant thefts, which allows the large chains to guarantee the taste of the dishes, since the recipes will be the same in all the points of sale. You can also get an estimate of the cost of preparing a dish using the recipe calculation function.

You just need to enter the recipe with the serving size of each ingredient and manage your restaurant’s inventory. The system gives you the food cost for that dish. It will also help you determine the selling price of that product. Ideally, the cost of food should be 30% of the menu price or sale price.

42.  Management of the expiration date  . Shelf life management is an integral part of restaurant inventory management. Each item in inventory has a specific expiration date. Some foods, like rice, can last for years, while others, like vegetables, can go bad very quickly.

Therefore, it is very important to manage the shelf life of perishables. For each of the items in your inventory, you can specify how long they can be stored and subsequently used before they become defective. If, due to a downturn in sales or for any other reason, any items have not been used during this time, you will be notified that they are spoiled and should not be used for cooking.

43. Reports and analyzes  . Another important restaurant inventory management feature that helps restaurants run smoothly is Reporting and Analytics. Reports on sales and usage of raw materials help predict and plan for the future. Income statements are generated based on the sale and consumption of inventory. This feature also helps you to:

• Analyze inventory trends. You can analyze inventory trends to make informed decisions like menu choices. Detailed reports based on the consumption of each stock give an idea of ​​which ingredient is most popular and should be used more in recipes.
• Monitor inventory and be specific. An accurate list of available supplies allows you to track your daily and weekly usage.
• Refine the forecast. Accurate forecasting is essential. Your projected sales calculations should be based on factors such as historical sales data

44. Use cloud-based inventory management software  : Look for software with real-time sales analysis. Look for software that connects directly to your point of sale, so your inventory levels are automatically adjusted every time you make a sale. Receive daily email notifications on product availability so you always know which products are out of stock or out of stock so you can order more time.

45. Link quality control to inventory management:  Employees should be provided with checklists and / or computer systems that can help them follow proper procedures when checking the goods they receive. All goods should be inspected for any damage, including leaks and breaks. or broken seals; deviations in descriptions – colors, styles and sizes of goods must be identical to the purchase orders; and the prices and conditions of sale. If the quality of the product is lower than the agreed quality, the product must be returned to the supplier. This measure also avoids unnecessary increases in stock levels.

46. ​​Reconsider Your Safety Stock:  Sometimes restaurant managers may wonder how much inventory their pantry shouldn’t go below. The simple answer is zero. Safety stocks are only useful if they are used. The purpose of the safety stock is to protect against expected fluctuations in supply and demand.

If you never use your safety stock, you have too much. On average, you should be below the safety stock level half of the times replenishment is available, and above the other half. If not, you need to rethink the products you stock in each location to get the most out of your dollar in inventory.

47. Plan your storage space. Every inch of pantry should be planned out to maximize storage space. This is one of the best inventory management practices that can be implemented at a very low cost. The space should be organized in such a way as to ensure fast and smooth transport of goods. There should also be enough space for people to move around.

Finally, you must be obsessed with your data. If you follow all of these steps, you will find that you are in control of your business like never before. You will be able to compare your consumption to what you planned and adjust your purchases accordingly.

You’ll know what’s coming up, what’s going out, what’s been spent, who spent it – the list goes on. Reviewing your data in real time will give you a better understanding of how your business is performing, what it is costing you, and how to save money.

In fact, the whole inventory process is usually how you approach your business. The flow of inventory from the delivery door down your customers’ backs to stomachs will become a clear picture and you will be armed with data to keep it that way. Good software helps, but you have to dedicate yourself to it. Food in your kitchen is an expected income in the future, but it is also an expense that you have already paid for. Do not forget this.