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Count your stock with a stock take

Open Stock Take, type what is on the shelf for each ingredient and packaging lot, leave uncounted lines blank, and save once. Each lot you change gets a correction in the adjustment history.

A stock take puts every ingredient and packaging purchase lot you have on hand on one sheet. Count the shelves, type what you find, leave out anything you did not count, and save once. FourFoxes sets each lot you changed to your count and records a correction for it in the adjustment history. Members, Admins, and Owners can take stock. Production Team users cannot open the sheet.

Open the sheet

On Inventory Adjustments, click Stock Take. The same button is under Quick Actions on the Inventory Dashboard.

The sheet has one line per lot, with four columns: Item, Source (the supplier and purchase date), Current, and Counted. It lists:

  • Every line of an ingredient purchase that is not at zero. Ingredients are sorted by name, then by purchase date, oldest first, so lots of the same ingredient sit together.
  • Every line of a packaging purchase that is a container, closure, or label and is not at zero, in the order the purchases were recorded.

Lots below zero are on the sheet too. Packaging lines with only a custom description, and orders on the separate Labeling Purchases page, are not tracked as stock, so they are not listed. If nothing is on hand, the sheet says No stock on hand to count.

Count and save

  1. Count each lot on the shelf.
  2. In Counted, type the total you found for that lot, not the difference. Ingredients are counted in the unit shown under Current, grams (g) or millilitres (mL), whatever unit you bought them in, with up to two decimals. Packaging is counted in whole units (each).
  3. Leave a line blank if you did not count it. A blank line changes nothing. Type 0 for a lot that is used up: a count of 0 sets the lot to zero.
  4. Click Save Stock Take.
Stock Take sheet The Stock Take sheet listing ingredient and packaging purchase lots with their Source and Current quantity. One habanero lot is below zero and carries a Below zero badge. Counts are typed in the Counted column, two lines are left blank, and the Save Stock Take button sits below the table. Stock Take Leave a line blank if you did not count it. A count of 0 sets the lot to zero. Back to Adjustments Item Source Current Counted Garlic, peeled Valley Farms, 2026-09-28 4200.00 g 3950 Habanero peppers Ridge Pepper Co., 2026-10-02 11340.00 g Habanero peppers Ridge Pepper Co., 2026-10-14 -450.00 g Below zero 0 White vinegar Bulk Supply, 2026-09-15 18925.00 mL 18900 5 oz woozy bottle Coastal Glass, 2026-08-30 312 each 300 24-410 black cap Coastal Glass, 2026-08-30 540 each Save Stock Take 1 2
Type what is on the shelf in Counted (1), leave lines you skipped blank, then save the whole sheet once (2).

You return to Inventory Adjustments with a message such as Stock take saved: 3 lot(s) updated.

What a stock take records

  • Each lot whose count differs from Current is set to your count and gets one Correction in the adjustment history. It shows the previous quantity, the counted quantity, the reason Physical Count, the note "Stock take", and who recorded it.
  • A count that matches Current writes nothing, so the history only shows real changes.
  • The value of each difference is recorded at the lot's unit price as a loss or find for the period. Batch costs do not change.
  • Counting an overdrawn purchase at 0 or more clears its Overdrawn warning on the purchase page and on every batch that drew from it. Notes already written on those batches stay in the batch history.

Lots marked Below zero

A red Below zero badge means batches drew more from that purchase than FourFoxes thought it held. It usually happens when the real stock came from another purchase that was not linked, or when a purchase quantity was entered short. Count what is actually there, often 0, and save. If you know which purchase the extra came from, also link it to the batch; see Clear stock warnings on a batch.

Lines that say recount

Stock can move while you count: someone links a purchase to a batch, packages a batch, or records an adjustment. When you save, FourFoxes checks each counted lot against the quantity it had when you opened the sheet. A lot that changed is not saved. Every other line still saves.

You then see Stock take saved 2 lot(s); 1 lot(s) changed since you loaded the sheet and were not saved. Recount them below. The sheet reloads with fresh Current values and empty Counted boxes, and each skipped line shows changed since you loaded this: recount. Count those lines again and save. You do not need to retype the lines that already saved.

Errors that stop the save

If any line has an error, nothing is saved. The sheet comes back with your counts still typed in and the error under the line. A count cannot be negative, and a packaging count must be a whole number. A packaging count cannot be more than the purchase bought: the line says More than the 500 bought on this purchase; record the extra as a new purchase. If a line says Reload the sheet and count again., open Stock Take again and re-enter that count.

Count when the floor is quiet

Take stock between production runs, and save soon after you open the sheet. Fewer batches packaged or linked while you count means fewer lines to recount.

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