The Importance of Accurate Stocktaking for Hospitality Businesses
Stocktaking is the process of taking control of your inventory. It includes a calculation of the stocks you have in-store and comparing them against inventory records. This comparison is compiled in a report that tells you the quantity of stocks you have on your shelves, their value, and compares them with previous inventory records.
Businesses that do not have a large volume of stock mostly conduct an end-of-year stocktake. Many other establishments avoid stocktaking more often because they have a notion that stocktaking requires a lot of after hours and results in business disruption.
An inventory control software can speed the process up and eliminate manual counting to an extent – but it may miss intricacies that a professional stocktaker will not.
In this article, we will talk about how a Stocktaking can increase gross profits, reduce stock loss, and minimise losses for your hospitality business.
Why Stocktaking is Essential for the Hospitality Industry?
Regular stocktaking helps you keep track of inventory accurately, including what has been sold, and those in transit from suppliers. The purpose of stocktaking is to compare physical stocks with reports to identify discrepancies. Determining stock wastage or loss will then paint the complete picture of what inventory has been sold, what has been wasted, and what has been given away as complimentary.
If the stocktake reveals a significant discrepancy, it may be symptomatic of a larger issue like employee theft or shrinkage. Once you identify the cause of the mismatch, you can address the issue by improving security, refining processes, or renegotiating with the supplier.
The Benefits of Stocktaking for Hospitality Businesses
There are several critical reasons why a stocktake is important for your hospitality business.
- Assess Stock Demand
Stocktaking helps in measuring demand for each item in your store. This helps analyse which stocks are performing better than others and facilitates informed decisions making for business owners.
- Prevent Overstocking & Stockouts
Any discrepancy that shows excess or low stocks is a problem for your business. Stocktaking increases the efficiency of stock forecasting and ordering to minimise losses and increase profit per product.
- Stay Updated with Stock Prices
Regular stocktakes will keep you informed regarding current stock prices and help you identify when they creep up. This data will further assist you in pricing menu items correctly to prevent losses.
- Prevent Employee Theft
Conducting regular stocktakes will uncover employee theft within your business, which can be eliminated with proper security measures.
- Manage Complete Inventory Lifecycle
The same-day reports furnished by our stocktakers will reveal the cost of stocks that you must buy, their selling price, and the number of stocks on-site. This will help you improve the profit margin on each item and achieve your gross profit goals.
- Menu Pricing
With accurate data on the cost of procuring raw materials and taxation, a stocktake will help you price your menu items to maintain profitability.
- Achieve KPIs
Meet all key performance indicators by identifying why your business falls short of the target and addressing those challenges with a stocktake.
- Prevent Stock Loss
Stocktakes will identify all perishable items and their expiry to optimise stock rotation and prevent losses.
- Discover Dead Stocks
With regular stocktakes, you can identify whether a particular item is low in demand or has seasonal sales. This will help you make informed decisions regarding which items to stock and when.
Achieve Profitability & Business Success with Hospitality Partners
Regular stocktakes become a necessity for businesses with high volume trade, especially hospitality ventures. Without a consistent foresight of stocks, hotels, bars, and nightclubs can incur losses on items that are difficult to identify without an inventory count.
At Hospitality Partners, we will take stock of your inventory to help you minimise stock losses and achieve maximum profit per item. Overall, you can trust our stocktakers to manage your inventory and provide consulting services to confer a competitive advantage to your hospitality business.