A cafe stock take in 15 minutes

A stock take tells you what you should have used and what you actually used. The gap between the two is money: over-pouring, waste nobody wrote down, a delivery that came in short. You don't need to count every sachet to find it.

Count the few things that matter

In most cafes, five to ten items make up most of the spend: coffee beans, milk and plant milks, cakes and bakes, sandwich fillings, and cups. Count those every week. Count everything else once a month.

Same time, same order

• Count at the same point each week, before opening or after closing, so sales aren't moving the numbers.
• Walk the same route every time: front fridge, back fridge, dry store, cellar. You'll stop missing things.
• Count in the units you buy in. Open bags and bottles count as part-units, so half a bag is 0.5.

Compare with what you sold

Opening stock, plus deliveries, minus what your sales say you used, gives what should be on the shelf. Take your count away from that. If you should have 24 litres of milk and you count 15, 9 litres have gone somewhere. At £1.30 for 2 litres, that's nearly £6 a week from one item.

Ask why, not who

Most gaps have a simple cause: jugs steamed too full, a cake dropped and not logged, a delivery checked in a hurry. Share the number with the team and ask what they think. A waste log that takes two taps fixes more than a telling-off.

Quokka lets staff count one item at a time on their phone, even in a cellar with no signal, and works out the gap for you. Join the waitlist.