Basic Quick Inventory Primer

I need help with a basic Inventory Primer for Stock Control. I have a basic understanding but as Go Live is days away I need to get this right first up.

Simple Menu Product with Portions

After using “Create Recipes” from the Recipes Menu under Inventory

There was Inventory Items Created as well

Now following @QMcKay wonderful Tutorial under the link below I need guidance on tracking stock.

Old V4 Reference:

QUESTIONS:

  1. Is it advised to use the “Create Recipes” menu option as I have all the Menu Products set up and operating fine?
  2. It seems the automated process has created 2 Inventory Items? Should this just be 1 Inventory Item with “Additional Units” as discussed in the V4 thread?
  3. Wines: What would be the best way to track wine - use Base Unit of What? Transaction Unit of Bottle/Case? The V5 Tutorial mentions you can leave “Transaction Unit” blank and have a “Multiplier” of “0” to track stock in Base Units?
  4. Liquor: Mixes such as Rum & Coke I have set up as 2 Menu Item Products - Nip and Post Mix. I see this could be done as a collective item but think I may want to keep it simple?
  5. Liquor: Based on the simple approach how would I set up say Rum Nips? It would be identicle to Wines but the “shot” would be much smaller “MLS”? Do you track RUM and such things in “Shots” or “MLS” as it sounds strange?

STOCK TAKE - will be the next area but I need to get Inventory done!

  • You need to have separate recipes for each product units.
  • Base unit should always be the smallest unit that used on recipes.
  • Transaction unit is the reporting unit. You’ll see inventory reports on transaction unit. If you don’t have a transaction unit base unit will be used.
  • Additional units used on purchases.

Good Info Emre.
What are about “Inventory Items” - Do I need separate Items or just 1 Item with 3 “Additional Units”, this is my biggist question?

It depends. If you have pizza small, large, xlarge you’ll have separate recipes for each unit. You’ll have 10gr cheese on large pizza recipe and 15 gr cheese on xlarge pizza recipe. Your inventory items are cheese, dough, salami and there is no direct relationship between product and additional units. If you buy cheese in boxes your additional unit for cheese will be box, transaction unit will be package and base unit will be grams.

Unfortunately I do not understand food the way you do (apart from eating it!). Can you give an example of a Bottle of Wine - bought by Case of 12 Bottles, Drunk by Glass or By Bottle… EDIT I should add Menu Product has 1 item but 2 Portions.

I just think “Create Recipes” is creating too many Inventory Items looking at Q’s thread from V4.

Create inventory items is for retail cases.

There is no single way to track inventory. It depends on how you buy wine and how you sell them. You purchase in bottles and sell in glasses. How do you define a glass? How can you tell how much wine consumed when a glass of wine sold in glass of wine recipe? If you define it in ml’s your base unit will be ml’s. If you can define it in shots base unit can be shots. If you can say you produce 6 glasses of wine from a bottle of wine and if glass is your smallest unit than your base unit can be glass.

Wow OK?
I thought a bottle of wine (750ml) was just about the most common item sold around the world in restaurants and this would be an easy answer.

So what I am asking from 1st images above:
I have a menu product with say 2 portions; 1 Glass, and 1 Bottle. What records do I set up in Inventory Items Screen and what records do I set up in Inventory Recipes Screen?

Base unit will be Glass but I find it strange during a stock count they will be counting glass as that may be relevant for opened bottles only…

How much wine per glass? You could define that as base.

4 Glasses of 187.5ml each I would imagine. Excuse my ignorance but what unti do you count and enter for stock takes? Is that End of Day Records right?

  • Some restaurants buys wine in bigger (and cheaper) bottles and sells glasses from that bottle. So inventory item for glass and bottle wines are not same.
  • Base unit is useful for building recipes. You’ll see reports and buy / count them in transaction unit.

If you configure it as a single menu product with 2 portions as 1 glass and 1 bottle and if you have single inventory item for wine and the base unit for inventory item is glass you’ll have 2 recipes; glass recipe will decrease 1 glass of wine and bottle recipe will decrease 6 (or 4? whatever) glasses of wine.

Ok that’s what I wanted to know as @QMcKay tutorial just skips setting up the Inventory Item Screens.

Now I tried what you suggested before your answer but when I sold the bottle it assumed only 2 glasses were sold? The other issue is based on your answer I should not use “Create Recipes” correct? (As this will give me 2 inventory items 1 for Glass and 1 for Bottle).

EDIT:
So I deleted the Recipes and Inventory Items that were automatically created and then MANUALLY added 1 Inventory Item with 2 Recipes and it first looks it works.
1 Glass Sold
1 Bottle Sold
Equals 5 Glasses sold…

If you want bottles sold then you need to define it seperarely from glasses. Or use bottles as your transaction unit.

Define it where Inventory or Recipes?
Then what happens when you do a stock count - it shows 2 lines then?

It depends on what you want. You define it how you want it to work.

You could make it track bottles for example. So you sell 1 glass your inventory might show .75 of bottle left.

Or some people track full bottle sales seperate from bar bottles that sell by glass.

Well Stock Take (Physical Stock Counts) are done weekly or monthly so how do you typically sum up Wine that is sold as Bottles and then also sold by the Glass. Umm see your answer maybe I think Bottles.

So THEN based on your answers:
If I track Bottles only, then I need the BASE Unit to be bottles, create 1 Inventory Item and 2 Recipes.
If I track Bottles and Glass separately then I could use the Recipe Builder and which creates 2 Inventory Items and 2 Recipes (1 for each tracking type or Portion).

Close?

I would forget the recipe builder unless your retail. Its not meant for food setups. But if you track both then yes you need two.

Ok I think I am seeing some light! Well it a crappy way to spend my holiday but too close and too little time left.

"End of Day Records"
What are the requirements for this as my Save Button not highlighting. Would it be because my WP is still open?

Yes I see from another Post WP must be closed. It does not matter if 30 WP are opened and closed before a End of DAY is done, right?

I had the same issue with bottles and glasses… in our previuos rest…
so I decided back then that I would have sepparate stocks for the same wine sold by bottle and sold by glass.

so, you check how many bottles do you have for BOTTLES… and you would knwo how many ml you should have for glasses… ml for glasses was a little tricky since samba told me that I had 2350 ml, that would be 2,35 litters, so I should have on my shelf 2 bottles with 1 litter each and a bottle with 350 ml (1/3 of a bottle)…

hope this helps you out a little bit more… or not… LOL!!!

G.

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Yes it does! This would be simple stuff to Restaurant Owners & Managers but to me - IT Guy no so clear so the more information the better … :smile:

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End of day records can only be edited for most recently closed wp so yes it does matter if you have 30 work periods it means wp 30 is only one you can adjust inventory for.