Restaurant inventory count sheet (free template) and how to use it

A restaurant inventory count sheet lists everything you keep in stock, in the order it sits on your shelves. Each line has room for how much you have and what it cost you. Download ours below as a PDF to print or as an Excel file to fill in.

The sheet is the easy part. A count is only useful if you take it the same way every time. Most of this guide covers how to do that: the order to walk, the unit to count in, the price to use and when to count. The last part turns a count into an order.

Download the free count sheet

Each row is one item. The sheet has six columns.

Download the count sheet (PDF, to print) or download the count sheet (Excel).

In the Excel file the columns run A to F, so Value is =D2*E2. The total at the bottom is =SUM(F2:F300). To see one area's total, use =SUMIF(A:A,"Walk-in",F:F).

Here is part of a filled-in sheet from Juniper Kitchen, the fictional restaurant we use in our examples. All prices are made up.

Lay the sheet out in shelf order

Write the items in the order a person walks past them. Start at the walk-in door and go shelf by shelf, top to bottom and left to right. Then do dry storage, the freezer and the bar. If you have a reach-in (a small fridge on the cooking line) or extra cases stacked in the office, give each one its own area.

When the sheet follows the shelves, the person counting reads down the page as they move along the shelf. A missed item shows up as a blank line.

A few habits keep the layout working:

• Walk the route once with the sheet in hand and fix the order before your first real count.
• Leave a few blank lines at the end of each area for new items.
• Keep the bar on its own pages. Beer, wine and liquor are measured against bar sales, so their value stays apart from food.
• Give paper goods, to-go containers and cleaning supplies their own area as well. They belong outside food cost.
• When you rearrange the walk-in, update the sheet that week.

Count each item in one unit, every time

You can count in the unit you buy in (a case, a 50 lb bag) or the unit you use (a pound, a single can). Either one works. The trouble starts when people switch. If one person writes "2" meaning cases and the next writes "2" meaning bags, that line is off by however many bags fit in a case.

Write the unit on every line, with the pack size for cases, such as "case (6 x #10 cans)". Then anyone counting knows what one unit means.

The simplest rule is to count in the same unit as your price. Meat that is sold by catch weight (the invoice charges for the exact weight in the box) is easiest to count in pounds. Canned goods can be counted in cans if your price is per can, or in cases if your price is per case. A #10 can is the large restaurant can, about 100 oz.

Count open packs in decimals. A case of tomatoes that is half gone is 0.5 cases. A liquor bottle about a third full is 0.3 bottles. Judging open bottles by eye in tenths is close enough for a weekly count.

Value each line at the price you paid

A count gives you quantities. To turn it into dollars, multiply each line by the price on your most recent invoice for that item. A price list from months ago leaves out every increase since then.

When the invoice price is per case and you count in smaller units, divide first:

Price per unit = case price / units in the case

Juniper Kitchen's last invoice from Heartland Foodservice shows a 40 lb case of boneless chicken thighs at $124.00. That is $124.00 / 40 = $3.10 per lb. The cook counted 18 lb, so the line is worth 18 x $3.10 = $55.80. At the spring price of $2.50 per lb, the same line would read $45.00. That is $10.80 off on one item. Across a whole sheet, errors like this can add up to more than the change you are trying to measure.

The crushed tomatoes came in a case of six #10 cans for $27.60, so one can is $27.60 / 6 = $4.60.

If you have never bought an item, use the vendor's current price and circle the line until the first invoice arrives. Update the Price paid column each week from that week's invoices. If you update it less often, write the date of the last update at the top of the sheet.

Count on the same day and time each week

Pick a day and a time and keep them. Counting before the first delivery of the week works well. Nothing is half put away, and the invoice for that delivery clearly belongs to the new week. Juniper Kitchen counts every Monday at 8 a.m., before the produce truck.

Counting at the same point each week makes one week comparable with the next. It also gives you two of the numbers the food cost formula needs:

Cost of food used = opening count + purchases - closing count

This Monday's count is the closing count for last week and the opening count for this week. Our guide to lowering food cost walks through the rest of the formula with an example.

If a full count every week is too much at first, do a full count once a month. In the weeks between, count only your most expensive items, such as proteins, cheese and liquor. Add the rest of the sheet once the short count feels routine.

Have the same people count each time, two if you can. One counts out loud and the other writes. Swap areas every few weeks so a second pair of eyes sees each shelf.

Turn the count into an order with par

Par is the amount you want on the shelf. Once an item has a par, the count tells you what to order:

Order = par - on hand

On hand is what you just counted. If on hand is already at par or above it, order nothing.

To set a par, start with how much you use and how long you wait for the next delivery:

Par = average use per day x days until the next delivery + a little extra

The extra covers a busy weekend or a late truck. Juniper Kitchen uses about half a case of Roma tomatoes a day. Valley Fresh Produce delivers on Monday and Thursday, so the longest wait is four days, from Thursday to Monday. Par = 0.5 x 4 + 1 extra case = 3 cases.

At Monday's count, the cook finds 1.5 cases. 3 - 1.5 = 1.5 cases to order. Valley Fresh sells whole cases, so the order rounds up to 2.

The kitchen needs 22 lb of chicken, and the vendor only sells 40 lb cases, so it orders one case. Rounding up to the pack is normal. If an item gets rounded up every week and the extra ends up in the trash, lower its par. Raise a par when you run out before the truck arrives.

Between full counts, a quick count of one vendor's items right before you order from that vendor keeps the numbers fresh.

To make the Excel sheet double as an order sheet, add a Par column (G) and an Order column (H) with =MAX(G2-D2,0). The MAX part keeps the order from going below zero.

Four mistakes that make counts wrong

Mixed units

One person counts cases and another counts bags or pounds, and both write a plain number. Print the unit on every line and count in that unit only. If someone counts it a different way, they convert before writing it down.

Old prices

A count valued at last spring's prices makes your stock look cheaper than it is. Take each price from the latest invoice, per the unit you count in.

Skipped shelves

The usual misses are the reach-in on the line, the overflow cases in the office, the beer cooler and the sauces in the prep fridge. An item left off one count and included in the next makes one week look better than it was and the next look worse. Give every storage spot an area on the sheet, and have the counter initial each area when it is done.

Counting after the truck

If the delivery comes before the count, some of it may be on the shelf and some still by the back door. Its invoice can then land in the wrong week. Count before the truck. If the truck came first, count every case it brought and put that invoice in the week that ends with this count.

Count day checklist

Print this and clip it to the front of the sheet.

Before you start

• [ ] Update Price paid from last week's invoices
• [ ] Check that no delivery has arrived since close

During the count

• [ ] Walk the areas in the order on the sheet
• [ ] Count in the unit printed on each line
• [ ] Count open packs in decimals
• [ ] Initial each area when it is done

After the count

• [ ] Type the counts into the Excel file, or total the PDF by hand
• [ ] Compare each area's value with last week and check any big jump
• [ ] Write the order for every item below par

Counting in RestaurantMate

If you would rather skip the typing, RestaurantMate runs the same steps on a phone and does the math. In the app, counts live on the Audits page.

Your lists follow the order you walk the kitchen, split into shelves. Staff tap a list, such as Walk-in, and enter counts shelf by shelf. They can count in any unit (case, bag, pound or each), and RestaurantMate converts it to the item's unit using the pack size. Each item shows its par and what was last delivered, so the person counting knows which pack they are looking at.

Each count is valued at the last price you paid for that item on an invoice. If you have not bought the item yet, RestaurantMate uses the vendor's current price. Items with no price at all are left out of the total, and the count tells you how many there are.

When a count is submitted, owners get an email that reads like this: "Maria submitted an audit for Juniper Kitchen · Main Street in Juniper Hospitality. It includes 64 counted items and 7 items that need ordering." Open the count to see the value on hand and the change since the last count. The Short of par list puts the most urgent items first. Shop takes you from that list to each item's prices across your vendors, so you can add what you need to one cart. RestaurantMate fills each vendor's online cart and checks every line, and you review and check out.

RestaurantMate is free for 60 days, then $99 a month per location, plus a $300 refundable deposit for the RestaurantMate device (one device covers up to two locations). You don't need a card to start. Get started or try the live demo.