How do I do a stocktake in a restaurant?

Count after close and before any delivery, so nothing moves mid-count. Walk the room the same way every time — dry store, fridge, freezer, then bar. Record quantities against a fixed item list, value them at your latest cost excluding VAT, then compare what you used against what you sold.

How do you calculate closing stock value?

Multiply the counted quantity of each item by its unit cost excluding VAT, then add the line values together. Use the same VAT basis throughout: mixing VAT-inclusive and VAT-exclusive figures will distort the result.

How do you work out cost of sales from a stocktake?

Cost of sales = opening stock + purchases − closing stock, all excluding VAT. Divide that by your net sales (menu takings ÷ 1.2 in the UK) to get cost of sales as a percentage. Gross profit is what's left.

How much stock variance is normal?

There is no universal normal percentage for every venue or product. Set a tolerance by category, compare like-for-like counts, and investigate repeated movement on the same item. Check the wastage log, deliveries against invoices, count units and portion sizes before drawing a conclusion.

Is this stocktake template really free?

Yes. No email address, no signup, no watermark. Download it, change it, share it with your team. There is no catch and nothing to unsubscribe from.

Free download

UK restaurant stocktake template

A stocktake sheet that actually does the maths. Closing stock value, cost of sales, gross profit and variance are all live formulas — enter your counts and the numbers move.

Built for UK venues, so VAT is handled the way it actually works here: costs ex-VAT, sales stripped back from your VAT-inclusive takings. No email address, no signup, no watermark.

Download the template (.xlsx)Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers, LibreOffice

What’s in it

Stocktake

Your item list with opening, purchased and closing quantities. Used quantity, cost of use and closing value calculate themselves.

Gross profit

Reads closing stock straight from the stocktake tab, strips VAT out of your sales properly, and gives you cost of sales and GP as cash and percentage.

Variance

What you expected to have against what you actually counted, with the thresholds worth acting on and the order to investigate in.

Read me

How to run the count so the numbers mean something — the same order, the same moment, ex-VAT costs throughout.

Getting a count that means something

Count at the same moment every time. After close, before any delivery. A count taken mid-delivery tells you nothing, and one taken at a different point each week cannot be compared with the last one.

Walk the room the same way. Dry store, fridge, freezer, bar. Consistency catches more errors than accuracy does — if you always count in the same order, a missed shelf shows up as an obvious gap rather than a plausible number.

Use ex-VAT costs throughout. For a UK VAT-registered venue, compare stock costs excluding VAT with net sales excluding VAT. Mixing inclusive and exclusive figures makes the margin impossible to compare consistently.

Investigate variance in order. Wastage log first, then deliveries against invoices, count units and portion sizes. Check the operational causes before assuming theft.

To make the weekly count faster as well as consistent, read the practical guide to the three changes that shorten a restaurant stocktake.

What a spreadsheet can’t do

A basic spreadsheet does not read supplier invoices or match their lines to your product catalogue. New products, pack sizes and price changes still need to be checked and entered by someone.

In FoxEra, you can photograph or upload a supplier invoice. It reads the lines into a draft, matches them to supplier packages, and asks you to confirm the result before stock is received. Confirmed invoice prices can update the package costs used by the recipe costing engine.

Core software, saved data, reports, users and David AI text chat are free forever; the metered AI, import, integration and workflow actions listed on Pricing use credits; every company starts with 24,000 credits (the same balance as the £160 top-up), and you can add more from £10 in the app or earn them by watching eligible videos.

See how FoxEra works Read the full stocktake guide Check credit pricing

Common questions

How do I do a stocktake in a restaurant?: Count after close and before any delivery, so nothing moves mid-count. Walk the room the same way every time — dry store, fridge, freezer, then bar. Record quantities against a fixed item list, value them at your latest cost excluding VAT, then compare what you used against what you sold.
How do you calculate closing stock value?: Multiply the counted quantity of each item by its unit cost excluding VAT, then add the line values together. Use the same VAT basis throughout: mixing VAT-inclusive and VAT-exclusive figures will distort the result.
How do you work out cost of sales from a stocktake?: Cost of sales = opening stock + purchases − closing stock, all excluding VAT. Divide that by your net sales (menu takings ÷ 1.2 in the UK) to get cost of sales as a percentage. Gross profit is what's left.
How much stock variance is normal?: There is no universal normal percentage for every venue or product. Set a tolerance by category, compare like-for-like counts, and investigate repeated movement on the same item. Check the wastage log, deliveries against invoices, count units and portion sizes before drawing a conclusion.
Is this stocktake template really free?: Yes. No email address, no signup, no watermark. Download it, change it, share it with your team. There is no catch and nothing to unsubscribe from.