How we count inventory every week in 15 minutes

Every Sunday at the end of the day, we count our inventory. It takes 10 to 15 minutes. That count is the foundation for every number I check on Monday morning, so it's one routine we don't skip.

Here's how we do it, and the mistake that made our numbers wrong when we started.

When we count, and who does it

We count every Sunday at the end of the day, after close, when nothing is moving. Counting at the same time every week matters: it means each week's numbers cover exactly seven days, so you can compare one week with the next.

The manager, or a staff member who's been trained on it, does the count. It doesn't need to be the owner. It needs to be someone who knows the items, counts carefully, and does it the same way every time.

What we count

We count everything that goes into our food cost %. As a quick service restaurant, that includes:

• Food: proteins, produce, dry goods, frozen, dairy, sauces and everything else that goes on the plate.
• Packaging: boxes, buckets, wrappers, cups, lids and bags. In a QSR, packaging is part of what every order costs you, so we include it in the number.
• Prepped and portioned items: anything that was batch prepped and hasn't been used yet. More on that below, because it's the one we used to get wrong.

How we make it fast

Our count sheet follows the restaurant. We laid it out so you start on one side and work your way through, shelf by shelf, in the same order the product actually sits. Nobody walks back and forth looking for the next item, and nothing gets skipped because it was on a different page.

If you're setting up a sheet for the first time, organize it by where things are stored, not alphabetically. Our free inventory count sheet is set up that way (walk-in, freezer, dry storage, packaging, beverages), and you can reorder the rows to match your own walk.

The mistake we made at the start

When we first started counting, we kept forgetting the batch-prepped food that hadn't been used yet: the portioned and prepped items sitting ready for the next shift.

It sounds small, but it threw our numbers off. That product had already been bought, so leaving it out of the count made it look like we'd used it. Our food cost came out higher than it really was, and we'd go looking for a problem that wasn't there.

The fix was simply adding the prepped and portioned items to the count sheet as their own section, so they can't be missed.

Why a weekly count matters

The count is what turns "what we bought" into "what we actually used": opening inventory, plus purchases, minus closing inventory. Without it, food cost is a guess. With it, you can see when product is going somewhere it shouldn't. That's how we caught a chicken portioning problem that was quietly costing us a couple of points of food cost.

My advice

Always keep a weekly count. It makes sure your inventory is accurate and that nothing is going missing, and it helps keep the restaurant on budget.

If you don't count yet, start this Sunday with the free count sheet. Once you know your weekly usage, the par level calculator can turn it into order quantities.