What is an inventory and how to manage them?
An inventory is a formal, full, dated process covering an entire store. It's the mandatory physical count of all available products in a store at a specific date and time. It's usually planned and recommended to coincide with month-end close.
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.
📢 Important: Because this is a full audit, any item not recorded with stock during the process will automatically be set to zero.
Step by step: running an inventory
Go to "Management", and click in "Inventories". In the three-dot menu, select "New inventory".
Choose the store to inventory and the inventory type.
An inventory will be created, ready to start. When you start it, the system generates an inventory with all the store's items and their theoretical stock and cost at that exact moment. You can then choose between two ways to work:
Start from the web: click "Start" to enter the real quantities digitally from the tspoonlab interface on your computer or tablet.
Start from the mobile app: open the tspoonlab app on your smartphone and click "Start" to enter the real quantities digitally.
Next, add the real quantity in the matching column.
You can view product formats by clicking the calculator icon next to the real-quantity cell.
Work with an Excel template: go to the "In products" section and, in the three-dot menu, select "Export inventory for stocktake (XLSX)" or "Export inventory with formats for stocktake (XLSX)" to download the template. You can export with suppliers' purchase format to make blind physical counting easier. Once you fill in the quantities in the file, you can import it back into the system in bulk.
To import the inventory, go to the imports section within the corresponding inventory. Click the three dots and select "Import inventories". Make sure not to change rows, columns, or product data. Only fill in the cells highlighted in yellow.
When you finish, click "Finish". If you have any comment, add it before finishing in the "Comments" section.
Once the inventory is finished, you can lock it (if you have permission in your settings) from the three-dot menu by selecting "Lock inventory". You can also filter the inventory to see only products with movements by clicking "Show only products with movements".
Finally, you can view the total real cost of your inventory.
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