How to perform an inventory check for prepared dishes and preparations

Inventory checks for prepared items give you a complete view of kitchen stock, help stabilize food cost and margins, reduce disagreements between the front of house, kitchen, and accounting team, and support better management decisions.

Before starting the inventory check:

• make sure you have inventory administrator permissions;
• ensure manufacturing is enabled;
• verify that all dishes are up to date.

Then open Inventory → Inventory checks → Create in the management console.

1. Temporarily pause sales, manufacturing, and stock transfers.
2. Create an inventory check for the required storage.
3. Filter only prepared dishes and preparations.
4. Fill in the Actual balance column in the Manufactures tab.
5. Enter the actual quantities. For portioned items, enter the total quantity in pieces or weight. Poster automatically recalculates preparations and prepared dishes into ingredients and displays their quantities in the Actual balance in prepack column.
6. Review discrepancies.
7. If prepared dish balances match the actual quantities and negative balances are resolved, complete the inventory check.

💡 If some items are stored in another storage location, create a stock transfer before starting the inventory check.

Keep in mind that new sales during the inventory process create discrepancies, so it is best to temporarily pause stock movement operations.

☝️ After the inventory check is completed, Poster automatically adds surplus stock and writes off shortages. The results immediately affect the cost for the selected period.