A simple monthly stock take routine for a shop, with a count sheet to copy

Your records say what should be on the shelf; the shelf says what is. The gap is made of breakage nobody wrote down, short deliveries signed for in a hurry, samples given away, mistakes at the counter, and theft. None of it shows until you count, and a gap left for six months is far harder to explain than one found after four weeks.

On paper, in a spreadsheet or in an app, use the same columns:

A variance is the difference between counted and expected stock. Value it at cost price, not selling price, so you see the money actually lost. Set a tolerance before you start, for example: recount anything off by more than two units or S$20, and look into anything still off after the recount.

Then look for patterns. One item short every month points to a cause you can fix: a supplier shorting deliveries, a staff member giving it away, a button at the counter ringing up the wrong item. Small random differences across many items usually mean waste and breakage aren't being written down.

Shrinkage is stock lost for reasons other than sales: damage, expiry, theft and errors. Track it as a share of sales so months compare fairly. Made-up example: a minimart counts S$420 less stock at cost than its records show, on S$28,000 of sales that month, so shrinkage is 420 ÷ 28,000 = 1.5%. If next month's figure doubles, look closer; if one category, say chilled drinks, makes up most of it, start there. Ways to cut it:

A reorder level is the stock count at which you place the next order. A simple formula: daily sales × (supplier lead time in days + safety days). Made-up example: a café sells 6 cartons of oat milk a day, the supplier delivers 3 days after ordering, and you keep 2 days spare, so the reorder level is 6 × (3 + 2) = 30 cartons. Order enough to last to the next delivery cycle, rounded to the supplier's pack size.

Review levels after each count. Items that ran out need a higher level; items that sat untouched need a lower one, or a place on the list of things to stop buying.

For food, the order you sell stock in matters as much as how much you have. First in, first out (FIFO) sends older deliveries out first; first expire, first out (FEFO) sends the earliest expiry date out first, which matters when deliveries arrive with mixed dates. SFA's Good Warehousing Practices say stock should be rotated by FIFO or FEFO, with records kept for the system. In practice:

Add a quick weekly count of about ten items: the fastest sellers, the most expensive, and anything that was off last month. Spot checks catch problems early and make the monthly count quicker, because there are fewer surprises.

Inventory is on Business. Turn on Count stock for a product in the Catalogue and give it its stock, cost price, low-stock alert level, pack size, supplier and, for food, the use-by date of the oldest stock. Each sale takes stock off as it happens, and recipes use up ingredients such as flour or cups when you sell the item they go into. Items sold by weight are counted in kilograms.

On count day, open Count stock and choose the shop. Each item shows what's in the app; you type what's on the shelf. Only the items you fill in change, and each difference is saved in Stock history as 'Counted', alongside sales, deliveries and the changes you record yourself: wasted, damaged, used, received or a correction, each with a note. Stock value shows what your stock is worth at cost, per shop and in total, and flags items with no cost price yet.

Items at or below their low-stock level show as Running low on the owner's Today screen and on Suppliers & stock, grouped by supplier with a suggested amount. Make an order turns them into a purchase order, and marking the delivery received adds the stock and records the cost under Expenses. Use-by dates coming up within a week show on Today too. With more than one shop, each branch has its own stock and low level, and you can move stock between shops.