Effective stocktaking gives you visibility on where your purchased goods go and helps you understand if stock is used, lost, stolen or wasted. 

Let Stock Counts save you the time and effort by:

• Collating data from purchases, sold items, and recorded wastage
• Allowing you to easily perform regular stock takes 
• Enables you to see your stock loss instantly 

What’s in this guide?

Before you Begin

Enabling Stock Counts

Setting up Stock Counts

• • Specifying inventory items
  • Creating and assigning Stock locations

Performing a Stock Count

• • Creating a list by Location, tag or all products
  • Counting stock and saving progress
  • Reviewing, recounting and submitting
  • Importing and Exporting CSV's

Reviewing past stock counts
Viewing Stock on Hand
Frequently Asked Questions

Before you begin

You would need:

• An active POS subscription - available on all POS plans
• A compatible phone or tablet

Note - Stock Locations functionality only available on the Manage and Extend POS plans.

Enabling Stock Counts

1. Select Features in Back Office, then choose Stock Counts
   
   
   
2. Select Enable
   

Setting up Stock Counts

Specifying Inventory Items

By default Lightspeed will enable the 'I Buy this item', 'I Sell this item' and 'I Stock this item' inventory settings for all of your products.

The 'I Buy This item' setting means that the item is purchased from a supplier and will appear as a product to be purchased in your Purchase screen

The 'I Sell This Item' setting means that the item will appear on POS as a product that you can sell.

The 'I Stock This Item' setting means that the item will appear in your Stock Count sheet as well as your Stock On Hand report.

You'll need to go through and check the product settings for each of your products to ensure you aren't configuring products that you sell, such as "Latte's, as stock. 

Below would be how you configure the Inventory settings for a carton of milk that you buy and stock. 

Pro Tip - Updating product setting can be done in bulk with a CSV export/import

Creating and assigning Stock locations

Using stock locations lets you and your staff keep track of where your inventory items are kept. So if you keep items in your bar, cool room and cellar, your staff will know exactly where they should look to make sure they don't miss any items when counting stock.

Note - The Stock locations functionality is only available on the Manage and Extend POS plans and is only available for users with admin permissions OR users with Site Products + Stocktaking permissions enabled.  

1. Head over to the Inventory section Back Office, then Select Stock locations.
   
   
2. Select New stock location
   
   
3. Add a new location name
   
4. After saving, select View products and choose the required items, then Assign location
   
5. Choose the required locations, then select Assign locations
   
   

Performing a Stock Count

Sometimes you need to counts everything in the venue, and sometime you need to keep a close eye on certain locations or items. With Stock Counts you can easily create a list to based for items in a location, with a specific product tag, or a complete list.

Count by location

Note - The Stock locations functionality is only available on the Manage and Extend POS plans and is only available for users with admin permissions OR users with Site Products + Stocktaking permissions enabled.  

1. Select New Stock Count
2. Select Count by location, then Next
   
3. Choose the required locations, then Start stock count
   
   

Count by tag

1. Select New Stock Count
2. Select Count by product tag, then Next
   
   
3. Choose the required tags, then Start stock count
   
   

Count all products

1. Select New Stock Count
2. Select Count all products, then Start stock count
   
   

Counting Stock and Saving Progress

1. Create a Stock Count by location, tag or all product following the previous steps
2. Enter the counted quantity individually or by the purchased format 
   
3. Select Save, next item to move to the next item
   
   

   If you don't want to count an item, be sure to select Don't count this item so a quantity of 0 is not recorded.

    

4. If you need to stop counting stock select Back, then Save
   

   Note: this will only be saved on the device you are counting on.
   Also be aware that clicking 'Don't save' will delete the current stock count, even if previously saved.

    

   
   
   
5. When ready, you can return to your saved stock count by selecting it here
   

Reviewing, recounting and submitting a stock count

When you have finished counting, it's important to review your variances to make sure you haven't missed anything. 

1. Select Review stock count
   
   
2. From the review page page you can see your Total variance, Total cost variance and Total Stock value
   
   
3. If you notice a variance and would like to recount an item, select Recount to see all the locations that item can be found. Add any missed items then select Apply change
   
   
4. When ready select Submit stock count
   
   

Importing and exporting CSV's

If you need to import and export your stock lists, this can be done by selecting the three dots in the top right hand corner of the counting screen

Reviewing Past Stock Counts

1. Use the filter to find the specific date range needed
   
2. Select a stock count from the filtered list to open a stock count review
   

Viewing Stock on Hand

See see a full list of all the products you stock and the current quantities on hand head over to Inventory, then select Stock on Hand.

You can also use the filter to focus on specific items by name or tag, or select which site's stock list you would like to see.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to pay for the Stock Counts feature?

The Stock Counts feature is available on all plans.

If you need a plan upgrade, it's a fine day for a power-up! Talk to us.

Where does stock on hand number come from?

In a stock count, the number of inventory items under Current Quantity is generated by Kounta.

This is collated from received purchase orders, wastage, and sold items or sold items’ recipes.

This is how it’s derived:

Current Quantity (Stock) =  Received purchase orders - Wastage - Sold items or sold items’ recipes

How do I add an inventory item to the stock list?

Stock items are added in as products- but with an additional setting. For items to show up in the stock list, you must indicate that you “stock this item” from product settings.

Glossary 

• Avg Cost Price: Live price from your purchase history or your fixed cost price
• Current Qty: Expected stock level based on your sales, received orders and wastage
• Counted Qty: How much you have just counted during your stocktake
• Variance Qty: This is the discrepancy between Current Qty and Counted Qty. You’ll want to confirm these numbers are correct. Confirming the accuracy of counts can help minimise shrinkage, loss, and theft.
• Cost Variance: A positive or negative value here points to a number of problems mainly inaccurate counts or missing stock.
  

What's my next step?

Maximise the full power of Lightspeed's Inventory tools!

Managing wastage is a challenge for many businesses in the hospo industry. Track your wastage (the why, who, and how much) and sync your inventory data automatically - so you save time and effort.

Once your stock items are entered, you can enter your recipes. This way, every time a product is sold (or entered as wastage), it will automatically update your stock count of how much is left.