How do you keep up with your inventory?

[Kais01]

Hello Everyone,

I am about 3 months into the the coffee house business and looking for advice on how to manage inventory. I currently use an excel spreadsheet and manually check it each Friday. I use the Square Register as my POS system. What are your suggestions

 

[incogitatus]

Hey Kais01!
I've got about 9 or 10 months before I open the doors to a new coffee house. I've been playing with excel, but I know there's got to be something better out there for inventory. Have you changed to another program/method?

 

[Kais01]

No I have not. I have a spreadsheet as well but cannot figure out the most efficient way to use it. Also I have found in being open for 3 months I am continually having to add things that I did not figure in the beginning. So I need a fast way to update.

 

[tazzadiluna]

I'm not in business yet (in a few years is what I'm looking at), but I wasn't sure if this would help you out. This guy is using Numbers on iPad. It's the equivalent of excel for windows on a PC. He said they used to do it on paper.

 

[Kais01]

Awesome!! Get idea

 

[montre]

MS Excel is just fine for doing inventory management at small level. Let me give you a list of some other alternatives as well. The best thing is that they are free, professional and easy to use software. Check out this link and download one which suits your need.

 

[TolliCafe]

Thanks for the info Montre!

 

[doddcoffee]

I think excel is a great way to do it if you are a smaller shop. If you need something a little more robust and to help with your accounting, you can work with Quickbooks. It can control inventory, and you can set up formulas that will equate to your sales to keep track of everything. It may be a little bit of overkill for what you are needing, but we use it and it has worked great.

 

[coffeeventure]

i use "on shelf" which is an ipad app. So far so good

 

[trk_koa]

I use the bean inventory features in the RoastMaster iPad app

 

[jigneshshah]

Keeping up with inventory gets much easier when sales automatically update stock levels instead of relying on spreadsheets. Foodiv is one system I’ve seen used where inventory adjusts as orders are placed, which reduces manual counting and helps spot low stock earlier without extra effort.

 

[NeutralVoice]

Early on, what you are doing is totally fine. Excel + a weekly physical count works as long as you stay disciplined. If you’re on Square, I’d lean into its inventory features for your core items so sales auto-deduct stock, then keep Excel just for ordering and par levels. The big thing is setting simple par levels and reorder points - once that’s dialed in, inventory becomes way less of a headache.