Free stock take template (Excel and Google Sheets)

One row per stock item: the unit you buy in, what one unit costs, and your opening count, purchases and closing count. The sheet works out usage — opening plus purchases minus closing — and what that usage cost you, then totals your opening, purchase, closing and usage value in pounds. Put in your food sales for the same period, ex VAT, and it returns your actual food cost percentage, your GP, and how far off your target you landed. Forty item rows, with ten UK kitchen lines filled in as a worked example to type over.

Download the free template (.xlsx)

Direct download — no email address, no sign-up. Opens in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers.

How to use it

• Count your opening stock at the start of the period and your closing stock at the end, and put the purchases for those same days in between. Enter each item in the unit you actually buy in — kilos, litres, each or cases — with the cost of one of those units.
• Usage and usage value fill in as you type. The totals row values your opening, purchases, closing and usage columns in pounds, so a sheet with kilos, litres and cases on it still adds up.
• Enter your food sales for the period ex VAT and you get your actual food cost percentage, your GP and the gap to the target you set — in percentage points and in pounds. UK gross profit is always measured on ex-VAT sales, so divide a VAT-inclusive figure by 1.2 first.

When you outgrow it

The walkthrough is in how to do a food stock take and calculate your actual food cost, and the free food cost calculator checks a single dish when you don't want to count the whole store. When you'd rather count by category in pounds than item by item, the Food Stock-Take & Actual Food Cost Tracker (£11.99) runs the same maths on a shorter list, with a how-to sheet.