Stock Reconciliation

Every kitchen's book stock drifts: over-portioning, unrecorded wastage, a supplier delivering short. Stock reconciliation is the disciplined answer — count what is physically there, and let the system post the difference.

How a count works#

1. Start a session for a business day, branch and kitchen department. The session opens as a draft — you can count over several hours, save, and return.
2. Enter counted quantities for each ingredient. The session shows what the system expects, so large gaps are visible while you can still recount.
3. Post the session. Posting records the physical count and trues up stock: for every ingredient, the variance becomes an adjustment (up or down) with a proper accounting voucher. After posting, system stock equals your counted stock.

The day close connection#

A count is a snapshot of a moment; the day's sales must be fully consumed before the snapshot can be trusted. For branches whose stock consumption runs on day close, posting a reconciliation for a business day requires that day's close to be finished, including its consumption:

• You can post the same night, right after the close — even if the count's paper time is later than the close time; what matters is the business day.
• You can post days later — only the counted day's close matters, not today's.
• If the day closed but its consumption failed or was overridden, posting is blocked with a pointer to repair the consumption first. Posting on top of un-consumed sales would bake the whole day's usage into your "variance".

Reading the results#

The variance report per session shows counted vs expected per ingredient with values. Patterns to look for:

• Consistent small shrinkage on a costly ingredient — portioning drift; check the recipe against the kitchen's actual scoop.
• One-off large gap — usually a missed entry (an unposted purchase or transfer) rather than theft; check the ingredient's ledger first.
• Variance that flips sign between counts — counting method inconsistency; make sure the same units are used every time.

Cadence: weekly for expensive proteins, monthly for the full store is a common rhythm. A count you do regularly and quickly beats a perfect count you do twice a year.

Two similar names, two different things#

You'll also meet closing inventory in the Inventory menu. The distinction:

• Closing inventory is a pure count record — what was physically counted, stored for the stock report's physical-closing and next-day opening columns. It moves no stock and posts nothing.
• Stock reconciliation (and its underlying closing-stock adjustments) acts on the count — posting the variance so system stock becomes the counted stock, with ledger entries.

Operations that only want visibility record closing inventory; operations that want the books corrected reconcile. Both are per branch and kitchen department, so the bar counts without freezing the kitchen.