Weekly inventory count sheet template: shelf-to-sheet order, units and par

An inventory count goes wrong in small ways. Someone counts the oat milk in cartons and someone else in cases. The dry storage list is alphabetical, so the counter walks back and forth across the room. A half-used bag of flour gets written down as "1". None of these is a big mistake, but together they make your weekly number worthless.

This post is the sheet: how to lay it out so the count goes shelf by shelf, what columns it needs, and the conventions that make two people's counts agree. How to set the par levels on it, what to count daily and how to order from it are in our guide to café inventory: par levels, counts and ordering.

Shelf-to-sheet: the one layout rule

The sheet lists items in the order they sit on the shelves, and the shelves in the order you walk the building. Not alphabetically, not by vendor, not by category.

To set it up once:

1. Walk your route with a clipboard: front of house, the bar, the reach-ins, the walk-in, the freezer, dry storage. Pick the order that doesn't double back.
2. Number the shelves in that order, and put a small label on each (W1: walk-in, left, top). The same number goes on the sheet.
3. Write down what's on each shelf, left to right, top to bottom, in that order.
4. Give every item one home shelf. If the same item lives in two places (cups at the bar and in dry storage), list it on both shelves and add the lines up.
5. Move the product, not the sheet. When something moves for good, change the sheet that week.

A count in shelf order goes faster, and a missing line stands out: there's an empty space on the shelf where a line on the sheet has no number.

The columns

Full and loose counted separately is the trick that fixes most count errors. Nobody multiplies in their head on a ladder in the freezer. Do the math at the desk afterwards.

The printable sheet

Print the header once, then one block per zone. Shelves in walk order; items in shelf order.

Location ________ Date ________ Counted by ________ and ________ Start ____ End ____

Zone: walk-in cooler

Zone: dry storage

The items and pack sizes are examples; use your own.

At the bottom: Signed ________ Entered into the system by ________ on ________.

The counting rules

Put these on the back of the sheet:

• Count what's there. Never copy last week's number because "it never moves".
• Partials in tenths. A half-full bottle of syrup is 0.5. For bulk products that matter (flour, coffee beans), weigh the open bag and write the weight as a fraction of the full bag.
• Zero is a number. An empty shelf spot gets a 0, not a blank. A blank means "didn't count".
• Count before the delivery is put away, or after it's all put away. Never in the middle.
• Same day, same time, every week. Before opening on a Monday works for most cafés; so does right after close on Sunday. Whatever you pick, it has to be the same, so this week compares with last week.
• Two people if you can: one counts out loud, the other writes. It's faster, and the writer catches "wait, is that cases or bottles?"
• Spoiled or out of date? Pull it, log it as waste, and don't count it. Our food waste log has the form.

The big-swing check

Before you file the sheet, compare each total with last week's:

Expected = last week's count + deliveries received − what you threw out (waste log)

You can't subtract what you sold without recipe data, so this isn't a full variance. It's a sanity check. If the oat milk was 30 last week, 24 came in and none was wasted, a count of 8 means you used 46 cartons this week. If you usually use about 40, fine. If you usually use 20, count that shelf again before you believe it.

Flag anything that's off by more than a few units on an expensive item. Recount it the same day, while the shelf still looks the same.

From the sheet to the order

Every line with a ✓ in Below par? goes on the order: par minus total, rounded up to full packs. If a vendor delivers twice a week, the par has to cover the gap; the worked example in the par levels guide shows how. The vendor order guide keeps each vendor's cutoff and minimum on one page.

Where Mays fits

• Your walk, as shelves. Under Inventory → Shelves, add each zone and shelf and number them in the order you walk. Then give each item its Home shelf. See Shelves and storage areas.
• Counting shelf by shelf on a phone. Managers and admins count in the Mays app. Guided mode takes them shelf by shelf and marks the items whose home shelf it is On this shelf; when the count is submitted, an item counted on several shelves is added up. See Counting inventory in the app.
• Cases and units without the math. Each item has a count unit and alternate units, like a case of 6. Count in either, and Mays converts to the count unit. See Inventory items.
• The big-swing check, done for you. When a count is submitted, each item shows Expected (the last count, plus deliveries, minus waste, sales and transfers since) and the Variance. See Running stock counts.
• Par and the order. Pars are set per location on Inventory → Stock, with a Below par only filter, and Order to par fills in an order up to par, rounded to full packs. See Stock on hand and Purchase orders.

What Mays doesn't do yet: there's no printable count sheet. The count list on the web isn't in shelf order (its Storage filter uses storage names from an import, not your shelves), so for a paper count, print this template and type the totals in afterwards. Counts can't be approved yet either, so the Approved column stays empty.

Same route, same units, same day

Lay the sheet out the way you walk, count full and loose separately, write a zero when it's zero, and check the big swings before you order. Four weeks in, the count takes half the time and the numbers mean something.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll set up your shelves and first count with you.