Everybody does it in one way or another, although some do it for the wrong reasons.
I do think that having this process in your location is important but you shouldn’t do it because you want to see if your employees are stealing from you. There will be losses and they should not be blamed for every 50 ml that are missing, tho if you see something really big missing ask some questions and monitor the situations.
Having this process in your location will also help monitor what products are popular and which should not be in your menu anymore. A smart inventory should make you more money.
People
First of all pick who is doing the inventory, the manager, the off shift, the current shift, your choice, whatever works for you.
In my opinion the off shift should do the inventory, they are rested and they have peace of mind while doing it, make sure as a manager you pay them for their time! Also you should make sure that they are rotating each month a team is not doing this two months in a row.
When
Another important thing is timing. How often and when is it happening. For obvious reasons you can’t do that during working hours, this is another reason why everybody hates doing inventory, because you either have to come really early or stay really late. You should pick whatever suits your needs better. I have to say tho, after a long day of working staging another 2 hours to count ain’t a pleasure, so keep that in mind when choosing the timing.
Besides picking what time of the day you want this to happen you also have to pick the time of the month you want this to happen. Usually this is at the end of the month or beginning of the month.
Inventory types
- Perpetual inventory
- Physic inventory
Perpetual inventory is when you add each order to the countdown of each product that is selling. You do this by connecting your operating system to an inventory system and adding each order so it will do it automatically.
Physic inventory is when you actually count each item.
In the end you can compare the two.
Methods
You should definitely stop doing your inventory on paper and make it mechanically. Use technology! It is there to help you, embrace it. You can invest in creating your own system that is tailored for your needs or just use an app!
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