What are stores in tspoonlab and how do you manage them?
Stores in tspoonlab are the virtual spaces where you organise your ingredients and keep detailed control of your stock. With stores, you can optimise purchasing and avoid both tying up too much money in stock and running short of supplies.
You can also set up your stores to match your physical space and your storage requirements. Each store brings together your purchase, sales, production and waste data, so you can analyse how your ingredients, recipes and dishes move.
Each ingredient must belong to a single store in tspoonlab. This keeps management simple and makes reports easier to generate.
Within each store, you can divide your ingredients into subgroups called locations.
💡 Tip: keep only the stock you need in each store. Too little stock leads to supply problems. Too much ties up money and increases the risk of waste as ingredients pass their expiry date.
Step-by-step guide to creating a store
To create a new store in tspoonlab:
Go to "Management".
Select "Stores".
Click the three-dot menu next to the search bar.
Select "Add store".
Enter a clear, descriptive name, such as "Kitchen", "Frozen" or "Packaging", so the store is easy to identify.
You can also add a comment to identify the store or describe what it's for.
Choose the "Store type" you need:
"With entries, exits and inventories": records every stock movement. Entries come from purchases or productions, and exits from sales, waste or transfers. You can also run regular inventories to check your stock. It's ideal for keeping a complete, detailed history of each ingredient.
"Only inventories": only lets you count and control the available quantity of certain ingredients, without recording entries or exits. It's useful in specific cases, such as ingredients you don't need to record as they come in. One example is a one-off stock of a prepared ingredient.
📌 Note: tspoonlab has default stores, either for ingredients or for recipes and dishes. If you mark a store as the default, tspoonlab uses it for ingredients that aren't in any other store. When an action generates a movement for one of those ingredients, tspoonlab adds it to the default store automatically.
Add or remove ingredients in a store
Once you've created a store in tspoonlab, the next step is to add the ingredients you're going to manage in it.
Add ingredients to a store
To add ingredients to a store in tspoonlab:
Find the store you created in your list of stores.
Click the three-dot menu next to that store.
Select "Add ingredients" to search for the ingredients you need and add them.
To find ingredients faster, filter the search by family or by supplier.
Remove ingredients from a store
To remove ingredients from a store in tspoonlab:
Click the three-dot menu next to the store.
Select "Remove ingredients".
📢 Important: when you remove an ingredient from a store, you lose the movement history of that specific ingredient (purchases, sales and productions).
Move stock between stores
To move stock from one store to another in tspoonlab:
Click the three-dot menu next to the ingredient you want to move.
Select "Move a quantity to another store".
Select the destination store.
Enter the quantity you want to move. This is essential, especially when you're moving only part of the available stock.
Confirm the movement.
tspoonlab records the movement and automatically adjusts the stock in both stores: the source store and the destination store.
Moving stock between stores is especially useful to redistribute it to meet operational needs, or to reorganise ingredients across your stores. Common reasons include restocking a store close to the production area or consolidating ingredients to make better use of space. Rotating stock efficiently through these movements also helps prevent waste.
📢 Important: each ingredient must have a single store so that tspoonlab records its entries and exits correctly. If you keep an ingredient in different places, or use it for different purposes, assign it to locations within the same store.
What is a store's inventory valuation in tspoonlab?
When you create or edit a store in tspoonlab, you choose its inventory valuation method in the "Inventory valuation" field. This method sets how tspoonlab calculates the monetary value of the store's stock in your inventories.
You can choose from three methods:
"FIFO" (First-In, First-Out)
"Weighted Average Cost (Purchases in the last 30 days)"
"Weighted Average Cost (Purchases in the store since the last inventory)"
The inventory valuation method doesn't change your recipe costings. Find out how each method works, with worked examples, in Set up inventory valuation for your stores.
Still need help?
Click the built-in Support Chat in the bottom-right corner of your screen and our team will get back to you.