What is a partial count and how to do them?
In tspoonlab, a partial count is an immediate, focused operational process that needs no prior planning. You run it voluntarily in day-to-day kitchen management when the team needs tighter, real-time control over certain high-value or fast-moving products. Unlike the mandatory month-end inventories, this tool lets you make on-the-spot corrections, focusing on the most important products to protect profit margins, without affecting the rest of the store's stock.
📢 Important: A partial count is a quick, selective check of specific products or locations that only updates the items counted, without changing the rest of the store. An inventory, by contrast, is a full, mandatory audit of the whole store for period closes, where any item not recorded is automatically set to zero to calculate real Food Cost and overall waste.
Step by step: a partial count from stores in tspoonlab
Go to "Management" and then select "Stores" and choose the store where you want to count.
You can count a product quickly and automatically by opening the product's dropdown menu and clicking "Set quantity".
Enter the counted quantity and click "OK".
Click the product's expand arrow to see the last stock movement you added.
Step by step: a partial count via export
You can also run a partial count by importing an Excel file. To do it this way, follow these steps:
To record an item's stock directly in tspoonlab, go to "Management", click "Stores", and choose the store where you want to count.
Inside the store, open the three-dot menu in the products section and select "Export for partial count" or "Export with formats for partial count" to get the list with purchase formats.
An .XLSX file will download; fill in only the yellow-highlighted cell for the products you want to recount. It's very important not to change columns or edit names so the import works correctly.
Without leaving the store, go to the "Imports" section within the store record and click the dropdown to select "Import partial count".
How to speed up counts with key products
In a kitchen's day-to-day, certain high-value or fast-moving items need far more frequent monitoring than the rest. To avoid wasting time searching for these ingredients in endless lists, tspoonlab lets you mark your items as "Key products".
When you enable this option, you create a shortcut for your daily counts. The system groups these priority-control products so they're always at hand, letting you run mini inventories in seconds and keep deviations of your most expensive raw materials in check.
Step by step: setting up and using key products
How to mark an item as a key product
Go to "Offer" and select "Products". Find the high-priority ingredient you want to control and open its product record.
Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner and select "Set as key product".
How to view key products in your partial count
Go to "Management", then "Stores", and select the store of the key product.
Key products appear in the top rows of the store with the green star symbol that identifies them. This makes setting quantities even faster and simpler.
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