Automated Inventory Management
Filipe Martins, MBA
My background includes operations management in F & B and Hospitality, with more than twenty years experience.
An inventory software will integrate an ingredient file for food and non-food items and an inventory file. The ingredient file contains all necessary information to o define the ingredients.
The inventory file contains information about inventory stock levels and reorder points and is used for computing usage, variances, and product valuations.
Automated systems allow us to know the usage rates and can maintain perpetual inventory balances. They can also be aware of upcoming expiration dates for inventory items.
Also, it is possible for multi-unit operations to receive inventory information on a by-unit basis via internet.
The basic control procedures already noted apply to both food and beverage products. However, since beverages, especially liquor and wine, are expensive and popular targets for theft, they require special control precautions.
When beverage items behind the bar are valued for inventory purposes, the fol- lowing procedures can be used to manually assess costs:
1. Count the number of unopened bottles of each type of beverage product.
2. Determine the quantity of beverage products in opened bottles. This can be done either by visually estimating (for example, to the nearest tenth of a bottle) or by weighing.
3. Add the number of unopened bottles of each type of beverage to the amount remaining in opened bottles to assess the total volume of product available behind the bar.
4. Add the amount in the central storeroom to the behind-the-bar amount to determine the total beverage inventory.
5. Calculate the total cost of beverage items in inventory.