You could be losing a lot of money each day you receive deliveries from your suppliers and in the actual sense, you can’t see exactly or even ascertain how much you lose at the end of the week or month because of your poor recording system.

It’s important to check the following before you receive supplies to the store;

-Items are not damaged
-They are in the right measurements and your requisition
Some suppliers may exploit your establishment’s weakness or unawareness of the supplies of what you ordered to give you less and when you find out, you realise you have been leaving your profits to the supplier.

It’s therefore important to have a weighing scale and make it a routine for the one in-charge of the store to first weigh what has been delivered and record it in the book before storage. It’s important at this stage to check the master price list to find out if the quoted prices tally with the actual delivery prices for your accountability.

Only accept items which you requested from the supplier since some make it a habit to supply goods which are about to go bad without your knowledge and here, it’s much important to order for items in standard weights such as kilogramme and not in heaps or bundles since much as you want to make a profit, it will be easier for you to know how much has been used by your kitchen or bar, staff meals etc

Always make sure that not everyone goes into the store to pick up items. There should be some one to give away items from the store and make sure he/she measures what is being taken, records the destination and also weighs what has remained. It’s that person who in the end will be accountable for all the stock loss in the store if at all it happens.

For the bar staff, it’s so imperative to assign each staff a specific bar each shift and cannot work in other areas without management’s direction. This makes the staff members accountable for any stock losses/cash shortages.
It’s important for the suppliers to separate stock deliveries according to the destination i.e. beverages to the bar and food supplies to the restaurant store.

This will eliminate all the possibilities of theft among staff because in each department there will be someone accountable and not all have access to the store keys.

This allows two individual inventories and isolation of potential problems swiftly in your restaurant.
Beverages transferred to bars should be recorded on transfer dockets and used as part of the inventory. It’s thus important to warn, warn, and then dismiss any store man that you identify to be causing losses  to your restaurant.

So, the next time you look at your inventory results and wonder how to get them right or if there is indeed any light at end of the tunnel, it’s important to systemise your supplying and sales function to make aprofit.

And here make sure that your cashiers issue receipts for each sale they make and the kitchen also stays with one for propercoordination and stock taking.
Never allow staff to use spoilt supplies.

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