Run a stock take — Servora Help

A stock take replaces the system's figure with a counted one, and tells you how far apart they were. Until you have done one, your food cost is an estimate.

A stock take in progress. The variance column is the whole reason for doing it.

Before you start

Receive every delivery that has arrived.
Post every transfer, both ends.
Enter the day's sales.
Count when nothing is moving — before service or after close.

Counting mid-service produces a variance that measures nothing except how busy you were.

Counting

Stock Management → New stock take. Pick the outlet, the date, and whether you are counting in detail (line by line) or by category summary.
Work through the list in the order you walk the store — not alphabetically. Set your product categories up to match your physical layout and this takes half the time.
Enter what you count. Leave an item blank rather than guessing; blank is honest and zero is a claim.
Save as you go. A part-finished count survives being closed.
Post when it is complete.

Reading the variance

Pattern	Usually means
One item badly short, the rest fine	Theft, or a transfer nobody recorded.
Everything a little short	Yield percentages are too generous.
Everything a little over	Portioning is under spec, or sales are not fully synced.
High-value items short	Worth investigating today, not at month end.

How often

Full count monthly, at minimum — you cannot close a month's food cost without one. A weekly count of your top twenty items by value catches most problems while they are still small.