How often should a restaurant count its stock?

Count fast-moving, high-value items every week and do a full count every month. Busy kitchens with a lot of wastage or theft risk often count the top few items daily.

What is FIFO in a restaurant store?

FIFO means first in, first out: you use the oldest stock first. For anything with an expiry date, use first-expiry-first-out, so the batch that expires soonest is used before a newer batch.

What is the difference between theoretical and actual usage?

Theoretical usage is what your recipes say the sold dishes should have consumed. Actual usage is opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock. The gap between them is your variance.

What should I do with a large variance?

Investigate it before adjusting the stock. Check unlogged wastage, unrecorded deliveries, wrong units and out-of-date recipes. Then adjust the stock and write down the reason, so the adjustment can be reviewed later.

Do I need software for inventory management?

A spreadsheet works for a small kitchen if someone updates it every day. Software helps once you have many items, several people using the store, or more than one outlet, because stock is deducted from sales automatically instead of by hand.

Where do I start if I have no records today?

Do a full physical count this week, record it as your opening stock, then log every purchase and every piece of wastage from today. After a month you will have your first meaningful variance.

Restaurant inventory management checklist: daily, weekly and monthly

By HostAir · Last updated 16 October 2026

Short answer

Restaurant inventory control comes down to a few habits: check what arrives, store it so the oldest is used first, log wastage the same day, and count physical stock on a fixed schedule. Use the checklists below, with free count sheets to download.

What should I check every day?

Receiving: check every delivery against the purchase order or supplier bill for quantity, quality and rate, and reject or note anything short or damaged before the supplier leaves.
Storage: label items with the date received, and put new stock behind old stock so the oldest is used first (FIFO, or first-expiry-first-out for anything with an expiry date).
Wastage: write down spoiled, spilled, returned and over-prepared items the same day, with a reason. Memory at the end of the week is not accurate.
Fast movers: count the items that run out first — paneer, milk, cooking oil, gas cylinders — before the evening service starts.
Prep: cook gravies and bases against what you expect to sell, not what the pot happens to hold.
Staff meals and tastings: record them separately so they don’t get mixed up with missing stock.

What should I check every week?

Count your top ingredients by value — the handful that make up most of your purchases — and compare the count with what your records say you should have.
Review the wastage log: which items, which reason, which shift. Repeats point to a fixable cause such as over-ordering or poor storage.
Check for slow-moving and near-expiry stock, and plan specials or menu changes to use it.
Compare the rates on this week’s supplier bills with the rates you agreed, and with last week’s.
Set reorder levels for the items you nearly ran out of and fix the order quantity for the next week.
Walk the store: cold storage temperature, pest signs, and whether everything is labelled and covered.

What should I check every month?

Run a full physical count of every item, including dry stores, packaging and cleaning supplies, and value it at your latest purchase cost.
Work out your actual food cost from opening stock, purchases and closing stock, and compare it with the food cost your recipes say you should have.
Re-cost your top-selling dishes with this month’s supplier prices and check that the menu price still earns the margin you want.
Review suppliers: late or short deliveries, price changes and rejected goods.
Clean up your item list: merge duplicates, retire items you no longer buy, and fix units that people keep entering differently.
If you run more than one outlet or a central kitchen, reconcile stock sent between them against stock received.

How do I run a physical stock count?

Pick a fixed time — before opening or after closing — so no stock moves while you count.
Stop deliveries, transfers and issues from the store until the count is finished.
Count in the same order every time, section by section: cold storage, dry store, packaging, bar and cleaning supplies.
Have one person count and a second person write down, then swap for the high-value items.
Record the count in the unit you buy and use (kg, litres, pieces) and write partly used items as decimals, such as 2.5 kg.
Enter the expected closing stock from your records next to each count, and calculate the variance for each item.
Investigate the largest variances in rupee value first, before adjusting stock, and record the reason for each adjustment.

How do I read the variance?

Variance = physical count − expected closing stock
What you see	Likely cause	What to check
Less stock than expected, repeatedly, on one item	Over-portioning, unlogged wastage or loss	Weigh a few portions, review the wastage log, check who has store access
Less stock than expected, across many items	Recipes are out of date or sales were not entered	Compare recipe quantities with what the kitchen really uses; check bills against orders
More stock than expected	A delivery wasn’t recorded, or a unit was entered wrongly	Match supplier bills to what you recorded as received; check units (kg vs g)
Variance on a batch-cooked item	The batch yield was assumed, not measured	Measure how many portions a batch really serves and update the recipe
Small variances everywhere	Normal measuring error and trimming losses	Allow for it in the recipe quantity rather than chasing each one

Free count sheets to download

These sheets are free, with no email needed. The stock count sheet calculates expected closing stock and the variance in quantity and rupees. The recipe costing sheet gives the plate cost and food cost of each dish, which you can use for the expected usage figure.

Stock count and variance sheetOpening stock, purchases, wastage and expected usage give you expected closing stock. Enter your physical count to see the variance in quantity and rupees.Excel (.xlsx)CSV (.csv)
Recipe costing sheetList a dish’s ingredients and prices and get the plate cost, food cost % and profit per plate. Includes a worked paneer butter masala example and a blank sheet.Excel (.xlsx)CSV (.csv)

Doing this in HostAir

In HostAir you set up each dish’s recipe once, and stock is deducted automatically as dishes are billed, using the batch closest to expiry first. You record purchases through purchase orders and goods receipts, log wastage and adjustments, and run physical counts that show the variance between expected and actual stock.

Inventory is included in both paid plans, with no extra charge. Inventory runs in the web console; it is not in the mobile app.

Frequently asked questions

How often should a restaurant count its stock?: Count fast-moving, high-value items every week and do a full count every month. Busy kitchens with a lot of wastage or theft risk often count the top few items daily.
What is FIFO in a restaurant store?: FIFO means first in, first out: you use the oldest stock first. For anything with an expiry date, use first-expiry-first-out, so the batch that expires soonest is used before a newer batch.
What is the difference between theoretical and actual usage?: Theoretical usage is what your recipes say the sold dishes should have consumed. Actual usage is opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock. The gap between them is your variance.
What should I do with a large variance?: Investigate it before adjusting the stock. Check unlogged wastage, unrecorded deliveries, wrong units and out-of-date recipes. Then adjust the stock and write down the reason, so the adjustment can be reviewed later.
Do I need software for inventory management?: A spreadsheet works for a small kitchen if someone updates it every day. Software helps once you have many items, several people using the store, or more than one outlet, because stock is deducted from sales automatically instead of by hand.
Where do I start if I have no records today?: Do a full physical count this week, record it as your opening stock, then log every purchase and every piece of wastage from today. After a month you will have your first meaningful variance.