Stock counts: what should be there, and who answers for it

What stock counts are for

Inventory keeps a running figure for every item: what came in on GRNs, less what the recipes used, the wastage logged and the adjustments made. A stock count checks that figure against what is physically on the shelf.

Many restaurants make the staff who look after the stock answerable for it in their contracts: what goes missing on their watch comes out of their pay. This module is built for that. Every count names the employee responsible, and when a manager approves it, the shortage becomes a charge against that employee, offered on their Pay Salary form.

So it is an internal audit, not a quicker way to adjust stock. For a correction you do not mean to charge anybody for, use Adjust Stock on the Inventory item.

Count little and often — one category at the end of each shift — rather than everything once a month. A shortage found the same day can still be explained.

Switching it on, and its three options

Settings → Modules

Settings → Modules → Staff & attendance → Stock Counts & Staff Charges. Turn it on and save. Stock Counts appears in the sidebar under Inventory & Purchases. On a plan without Inventory the switch shows a padlock instead.

What a missing item is charged at: Cost price, the average cost Inventory keeps, or Selling price. The selling price only applies to finished goods from the Production module — ingredients are never sold on their own, so they are always charged at cost.

Charge overages too is off to start with: stock found over the records is shown on the report, but nobody is charged for it. Switch it on if your staff contracts make them answer for any difference, short or over.

Show the expected stock while counting is off to start with, and best left off. The person counting then sees only the list of items, never the figure they are meant to find — a count copied off the screen proves nothing.

Who counts, who checks, who approves

Roles

Stock Counts is hidden from every role until you grant it on the Roles screen: the report shows what a shortage cost, and the staff being counted should not stumble on the expected figures.

Add is counting: starting a count and typing in what is on the shelf. Give it to whoever counts — often the cashier or the store keeper at the end of a shift. They see their own counts and never the report.

View is the variance report. Give it to the manager who checks the counts.

Approve a Count & Charge the Employee is the step with money in it: it corrects the stock and charges the employee, and it is also what waives a charge. Delete lets a manager cancel a count before it is approved.

Counting the shelf

Stock Counts → Start a count

A stock can have only one open count at a time. Finish or cancel it before counting the same stock again — two approved counts of one shelf would charge the same shortage twice.

1. 1 Stock Counts → Start a count.
2. 2 Choose what is being counted — Inventory (ingredients), or Finished goods when the Production module is on — and a Category to count one shelf or section at a time, or Every category.
3. 3 Choose the employee responsible for this stock: whoever is charged for what is missing. Then Start counting.
4. 4 The count sheet lists every active item. Type in what is physically there, in any unit the item converts from — kilograms or grams, cartons or pieces — and 0 where there is none.
5. 5 Save and carry on later keeps what you have typed. Submit count hands it in once every item is counted.

The stock records are read the moment the count is submitted. Count when the counter is quiet and submit straight away: anything sold between counting a shelf and submitting makes that item look over.

Reading the variance report

Stock Counts → Variance report

Open a submitted count from Stock Counts with Variance report. For every item it shows what the records expected, what was counted — and in which unit, where it was typed in another — the difference, what one unit is worth and what the difference is worth. Short items are red and over items amber; tick Only items with a difference to hide the rest.

Above the table are the total short, the total over and what is to be charged: the shortage, plus the overage where overages are charged. A count keeps the rules it was valued under, so changing Settings later never re-prices it.

Print opens a one-page copy with a line for the employee's signature and one for the manager's.

Approving, and what the employee is charged

Stock Counts → Variance report

Approve count corrects the stock by each difference and charges the employee. The stock is moved BY the difference rather than set to the count, so anything sold after the count was handed in stays sold. Every correction appears in the item's stock ledger as Stock Count.

The charge starts at the full amount. Lower it to forgive part of the difference — two bottles broken in delivery, say — or set it to 0 to correct the stock without charging anybody, and write the reason in the note. It can never be raised above what the difference is worth.

Approval is final: an approved count cannot be cancelled or approved again. Before approval a count can be cancelled — by whoever started it while they are still counting, and afterwards by a manager — and then nothing changes at all.

Taking a charge from pay, or waiving it

Employees → Ledger → Pay Salary

Nothing is taken from anybody's pay on its own. The charge waits on the employee's ledger under Stock count charges, and the Pay Salary form offers it as a third deduction beside absences and lateness: tick Deduct stock count charges.

Charges are taken oldest first, after the other deductions, and never more than is left of that payment. A charge bigger than one month's salary is taken over several payments and stays owed until it is all taken. The payslip note records which counts were deducted and how much of each. An advance never takes a charge.

A charge still owed can be waived from the employee's ledger with a reason. It stays on the record, marked Waived, and is never deducted.

Switching the module off does not forgive what is already owed — the ledger keeps offering it on Pay Salary. And an employee with counts or charges on record cannot be deleted: terminate them instead.