Your introduction to Stocktakes in Loaded. Learn how to run accurate stocktakes, manage variances, and tighten stock control so you can protect margins and improve profitability.
Your account is built from 6 to 8 weeks of historical invoices, so anything you order less often won't be there yet. Expect to add a few items by hand, and the rest will arrive as you process invoices.
Count by is how you count an item. Order by is how you buy it. Mixing units, such as a 24-pack on one beer and single bottles on another, makes counts slow and easy to get wrong. Count kegs by the whole keg or by litre, never by mL.
Batched cocktails, mixes and bulk recipes only appear in your stocktake if they're ticked. Look for the S on the recipe.
Create a template for each area, like a keg room or wine cart, in the order you count it. Then start every stocktake from a system template such as All Beverage and add your areas to it. Never start from a template you created.
An item you add afterwards won't appear in a stocktake that's already started. Add anything missing first, then create the stocktake.
Do your first one on your own, then let your onboarding manager know when you're ready for the second so they can go through the variance report with you.
Your first stocktake involves some admin, so expect it to be slower than your usual process. Implementing a new system always is. The admin is what makes every stocktake after it efficient and sustainable. Before you start, check your items and your recipes.
Go to Stock, then Manage items, and work through category by category. For each item, check two units.
Keep count by units as consistent as you can. If most of your bottled drinks are counted as each, but one is counted as a 24-pack, it's easy to miss. Kegs are the classic example: count them by the whole 50 L keg or by the litre, and use the same one for every keg. Avoid counting kegs in mL, which is tedious and confusing.
Open your recipes and look for the S on the side, which marks a stocktake recipe. Any batch, mix or prepped recipe you want to count, such as a bulk cocktail, needs Stocktake this recipe ticked. That's what lets you count what's sitting in the back fridge or behind the bar. Food and beverage work the same way.
Templates let you count one storage area at a time, in the order you physically walk it. Go to Stocktake, then Stocktake templates, and create each template from a blank template.
Setting up templates is also a chance to tidy the venue. Think about why things are stored where they are, consolidate where you can and fix any processes that slow you down. That organising pays off in every later stocktake.
Under Stocktake, click Create new stocktake and choose a system template, such as All Beverage. Don't use the templates you created: they feed your areas, not your stocktake. You can rename the stocktake, set the date and time it was completed, and add the names of anyone who helped.
Scroll to the bottom and click Add areas. Select the areas you built, open each one and enter quantities. If you set a default count, the quantities are already filled in, so if the area is full you can just finish. Use Add recipes in the same way to record how much of a prepped recipe you have, for example 500 mL of a batched cocktail.
The main stocktake table lists each item with its unit and quantity, like a traditional stocktake. Type in your counts. If you change an item's count unit while counting, Loaded asks whether to make it the new default.
For each item Loaded shows the quantity from recipes, the quantity from areas and your counted quantity, and adds them into one total quantity. So six bottles of vodka in the back plus the vodka in a batched cocktail show as one consolidated figure.
Saving keeps the stocktake in your outstanding stocktakes. When you're done, click the blue Complete stocktake button. Your first stocktake won't show variances because there's nothing to compare it to, but you'll see the stock on hand value for your cost of goods. Keep the date and time accurate, even if you finish counting a few days after you start. You can also print the stocktake as a reference.
Loaded takes a snapshot of your items when you click Create new stocktake. If you add an item afterwards, it won't appear in the stocktake you've already started.
You can edit a stocktake after it's completed to fix quantities, such as an area or recipe you forgot, but editing won't add new items.
Do your first stocktake on your own. When you're ready for your second, let your onboarding manager know so they can go through your stocktake report and variances with you and help with anything that looks odd.
Loaded takes a snapshot of your items when you create a stocktake. An item added afterwards won't appear in a stocktake that's already started. Add the item first, then create a new stocktake and it will be included.
Count kegs by the whole keg (for example, a 50 L keg) or by the litre, and use the same unit for every keg. Avoid counting by mL, which is slow and easy to get wrong.
No. There's nothing to compare it to, so you'll only see the stock on hand value for your cost of goods. Variances start showing from your second stocktake, and your onboarding manager can help you go through them.
Yes. You can change quantities if you missed an area, recipe or item that was hiding in the corner. Editing won't pick up items you created after the stocktake was started.
Kaylene: Today we're going over stocktakes. I'll say it now and again at the end: you can do your first stocktake independently, but please let us know when you're ready to do your second, because we'd love to help go over your stocktake report once you've got it out. We can talk through any variances and anything that looks strange. So everything today is about your first stocktake, and when it comes to your second, please reach out to your onboarding manager as we'll give you a hand going through it.
Kaylene: There's a bit of admin that goes into getting your first stocktake set up in Loaded, so expect it to be slower than the stocktake processes you've probably got down to a science. Implementing any new system is like that. But making sure you have all the items you need, and setting things up properly, is what makes your future stocktakes efficient and sustainable.
Kaylene: This first stocktake gives you an audit of what's in your Loaded account. When you gave us 6 to 8 weeks of historical invoices, that doesn't cover everything. If you order things less often, once a year or once every six months, you won't see those items in your initial stocktake, unless you're already doing AI invoice processing, which we talked about yesterday. Any items that weren't in your initial implementation will show up as you receive them through AI invoice processing, but it takes a little while to catch up. You can absolutely add stock items manually, and we'll go through an example today. Everything in your account is relevant because it comes from those invoices, but you'll most likely have bits and pieces missing, which will be captured further down the road.
Kaylene: I'm in our Stock module, on the Manage items page, and I'm going to filter category by category. I'll focus on beverages today because it's easier for examples. Food is exactly the same process. For each category I'm going to review the count by and order by units. Your count by unit is how you count that product in your stocktakes. Your order by unit is how you order it from suppliers. You really want consistency here. If you had most of your bottles set to count by each, but one counted by 24-pack, you can see how that would be confusing and easy to miss. If you order by packs, count by units, and keep your count by units as consistent as possible, because it makes your stocktakes quite a bit faster.
Kaylene: Kegs are a good example. You probably want to count them either by the 50 L keg or by the litre. Avoid counting by mL, because it's confusing and tedious. Whichever you choose, use it for all of your kegs.
Kaylene: The other thing to do is jump into your recipes. Any recipe you want to stocktake has a little S on the side for stocktake recipe. I'll focus on beverages again, but food is the same process. I'll put a test cocktail in here as an example: 30 mL, and let's say it's a bulk recipe of 700 mL, with some vodka. Make sure Stocktake this recipe is ticked for anything you want to stocktake. It's very important when we get into the actual stocktake.
Kaylene: Now I'll jump into the Stocktake tab. When you first open it you'll see any outstanding stocktakes. I have an old one from May that I don't need to worry about. I want to go into my stocktake templates. I have an example called Keg room. In my venue I went into the keg room and listed all of the kegs, in the order they're in, and how I want to count them for the most efficient process. You can change the order by clicking the arrows up and down. You can also set a default count. If you know your keg room is always full when it has two of each of these, you can set a default count. It's more useful for things like your front bar fridge.
Kaylene: Let's make a template from scratch. I click the blue button and always create from a blank template. I'll name this Wine cart: say I've got a wine cart that lives on my patio and I want to stocktake that area. If it's full, I have six bottles of each wine, so I set that as the default count and save the template. Now it exists here alongside my keg room. Make sure Stocktake area is ticked.
Kaylene: Part of stocktaking is going through your venue and consolidating where you store things, what makes sense, and revisiting where you keep some items so that it becomes more efficient. When you're implementing a new system you want everything to be a bit more down to a science, so think about why things are stored where they are. If things can be consolidated, or processes updated, that's part of the process, and it will definitely help you down the road. I know it's crazy out there, trust me.
Kaylene: Now that I have my templates, I'll create an actual stocktake. When I click Create new stocktake, I'm never going to use the user templates we just created. I know it's tempting. We always use a system template. I'll click Beverage, and my All Beverage template pops up. I can rename it, update the date and time that I completed the stocktake, and enter the names of anyone who helped.
Kaylene: I'll scroll to the bottom and click Add areas. I can click the box and, from the drop-down, I see both Keg room and Wine cart, so I'll add both. When I click into Keg room, I see the template I created, with everything already in order, and I can update my quantities: two of these, five of those, three and a half of those, 1.75 of this hazy keg. You can see why this would be confusing if we were filling it out quickly and had an outlier. Make sure your units are pretty consistent. It helps in the long run. I'll finish there.
Kaylene: When I open Wine cart, the quantities are already set, because I set a default count on the template. You don't have to set one, but I know that when my wine cart is fully stocked there are six of each, so I can say yes, it's full, finish, and go back to my stocktake.
Kaylene: We can add recipes the same way. You'll see my test cocktail here, in mL, and I can say how much of that prepped recipe I have sitting in the back fridge or at the bar. I've got 500 mL. When I go back to my stocktake, it's broken out by item, unit and quantity, like a traditional stocktake. You can type in all your numbers. I've got 30 of these, 50 of these, 45 and 45 of these. It's quite easy, and it's a great example of why unit consistency matters, because it's easy to miss something when the counting unit changes from each to a one-off pack. It will ask if I want to change that to my default, and I'll say yes.
Kaylene: Your unit and quantity here are the traditional stocktake. Even though I haven't entered anything in the traditional count for my kegs, my quantity from recipes is zero and my quantity from areas pulls through the numbers we added on the template. That's where your consistency comes from. It takes your quantity from the traditional count, your quantity from recipes and your quantity from areas, and gives you a total quantity. For example, with the vodka, if I know I have six bottles in the back, I enter six, and the quantity from recipes shows the cocktail recipe we looked at, and I get one consolidated quantity. It's the same with the wine: my quantity from areas shows six, because that's what's in my wine cart.
Kaylene: I'll save, and the stocktake lives in my outstanding stocktakes until I click the blue Complete stocktake button. Then I can see the stock on hand value for this first stocktake. With your first stocktake you won't see any variances, because we have nothing to compare it to, but you'll see your cost of goods on hand value. It's important that your date and time are correct. Even if you start today and don't finish counting until Monday, make sure the date is accurate. You can also print your stocktake, which gives you all of your items as a reference.
Kaylene: If you have new items you definitely want to count, especially in your first stocktake, you'll need to create them. But when you click Create new stocktake, it takes a snapshot of your existing items, so it won't pick up an item you create afterwards unless you start a new stocktake. That's very important to know. Say I want to stocktake ginger beer. I search Manage items and don't see it. I click Add new item, then Add custom item, and I call it ginger beer. I order it in a 24-pack and count it by each. I don't need a default supplier or brand, and if you have a forecast price, great. I set the category to bottled and click Add item.
Kaylene: Even though ginger beer now exists in my stock items, if I go back to the stocktake I created before and search for it, it won't show, because Loaded took a snapshot when I created it. If I create a new stocktake now, the new one will have the ginger beer, but the other one won't. So do a quick cross-check of the items in Loaded against the items you might need to add before completing your first stocktake. If you're processing invoices through AI invoice processing, items on those invoices will come through, so it may be worth prioritising that before you complete your stocktake if there are items you want added to your stock list.
Kaylene: You can also edit stocktakes after they're completed. If I go into the one we did before and edit it, that's absolutely fine, but it won't pick up any new items you've created, so my ginger beer isn't going to show up. You can edit your quantities if you missed something, if something was hiding in the corner, or if you forgot an area or a recipe.
Kaylene: To review what to do before your first stocktake: go through your Stock, Manage items page category by category and check the count by units for all of your items, so there's consistency. Go into your recipes and make sure Stocktake this recipe is ticked for any recipe you want to stocktake. Then go to your Stocktake tab, Stocktake templates, and make as many templates as make sense for your venue, because it offers efficiency and accuracy down the line.
Kaylene: And again, it's very important that you reach out for your second stocktake so we can go through variance reporting and help with any crazy numbers, or any variances throwing a spanner in the works. Feel free to ask any questions and use your onboarding app. That's what I have for you today. If you have questions, pop them in the chat and I'll stick around for a minute. Otherwise, enjoy your weekend. I'm sure we'll be chatting soon. Thanks, everybody.
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