Restaurant, kitchen and cafe inventory count sheet (free, printable)
A kitchen count is done by storage area, not by product: walk-in, freezer, dry store, bar fridge. The free sheet below has one line per item with a column for the area, the unit and the count, and a blank PDF you can print for the walk-round. It is a plain count sheet. It does not track recipes, yields or waste.
Free: count sheet to print or fill in
Blank stock count sheet (PDF, A4) to print and write on, and the sample count sheet with variance (.xlsx) to fill in on a computer, or Open in Google Sheets (make a copy). Free, no email asked.
What to put on a kitchen count sheet
- Items grouped by storage area, in the order you walk the room, so nothing is counted twice or skipped.
- Unit next to every quantity (kg, case, tray, bottle, each). Pick one counting unit per item and keep it.
- Par level (the amount you want on the shelf) and the amount to order, which is par minus counted.
- Counted quantity and unit cost, so the closing stock can be valued.
- Date, counter's initials, and a note column for damaged, expired or thrown-away items.
Counting perishables and open items
- Count after close or before the first prep, the same time each period, so counts compare.
- Count opened packs and bottles as fractions (0.5 of a tub) and let the same person estimate them each time.
- Count the walk-in and freezer with date labels visible, and write expired stock in the note column rather than leaving it out.
- Record deliveries received during the count on a separate line; do not mix them into the count.
From count to cost of goods
Opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock is what you used in the period. Divide it by food sales for that period and you have your cost percentage. Compare it with what the menu should cost, and a gap shows over-portioning, waste or theft. The Excel sample shows counted, system and difference columns; for a restaurant, treat the system column as your opening stock plus purchases.
Where this sheet fits, and where it does not
The free sheet works for a cafe, restaurant or bar with a stock list in a spreadsheet. The paid kit below is built for retail shops with SKUs and locations, with a Shopify and Stocky CSV import, a variance and shrink report and a cycle-count calendar. It can hold a food stock list too, but it has no recipe costing, no par-level ordering and no expiry tracking, so most kitchens should stay with the free sheet. If you sell products from a shop that also run on SKUs (retail, a deli counter with packaged goods), the kit fits that part.
If you want the whole job done: the Stocktake Kit (12 USD)
The free sheet gives you a place to write counts. The Stocktake Kit for Excel adds an import tab for your inventory export, blind count sheets, variance at cost with a RECOUNT flag, an automatic recount queue, a shrink report by category and a 52-week ABC cycle-count calendar. One payment, no subscription, refund within 14 days if it does not work for your shop.
See the Stocktake Kit (12 USD) or buy it now
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