What is a stocktake?

The short answer

A stocktake is a count of everything you are holding, valued at what it cost you, taken at a fixed point in time. On its own that gives you a stock valuation. Put beside your opening stock, your purchases and your sales, it tells you something far more useful: what should be left, what actually is left, and the gap between the two.

That gap is your variance — stock you paid for and never took money for. In a bar it is over-pouring, giveaways, breakages, wrong PLU buttons and, occasionally, theft. In a kitchen it is wastage, staff food, over-portioning and unrecorded transfers.

Stock take or stocktake?

Both are used and both mean the same thing. "Stock take" as two words is the older spelling and still the more common one spoken in the trade; "stocktake" is the usual written form. "Taking stock" and a "stock audit" describe the same exercise.

What stocktakers do on the day

An independent stocktaker arrives, counts every product in every location — main bar, lounge, cellar, kitchen, dry store, freezer — and records it in the correct measure. Bottled beer and wine count as units. A 70cl spirit is counted to a fraction of a bottle. A 50L keg is counted to a fraction of a keg.

Your deliveries for the period are then entered invoice by invoice, your till sales are imported by PLU, and the whole lot is reconciled. Nothing in the report is an estimate: every figure ties back to a count, a docket or a till reading.

What the report should tell you

A useful stocktake report gives you gross profit achieved against gross profit expected, the value of unaccounted stock at cost and at retail, the worst offending products ranked, a purchase analysis by supplier, and a dated stock valuation for your accountant.

If all you get back is a single valuation figure, you have paid for a count, not a stock audit.

How often should you take stock?

Monthly is the standard for a bar or a food-led pub, and it lines up neatly with a trading period and your accounts. Weekly counts suit high-volume city bars and any site where a specific problem is being chased down. Annual counts are only good enough for a valuation — by the time a yearly figure is bad, the money is long gone.