An inventory count sheet lists every item in the order you walk past it, with the unit you count it in, the pack size, and blank spaces for full packs and loose units. It deliberately leaves out how many you're supposed to have, so the counter writes what's there and not what they expect. Below is a filled-in example from a small kitchen's end-of-week count, how to lay one out, and the Excel file, which prints one page wide.
The short version
- List items in shelf order, location by location, not alphabetically.
- Count full packs and loose units in separate columns, and let a formula add them up.
- Leave the expected quantity off the sheet. Compare afterwards, in the office.
- Count when nothing's moving: before production starts, or after it's done.
- On a phone instead of paper, with the difference priced before you post it, is how TaroStack does it. More below.
What goes on the sheet
| Column | Why it's there |
|---|---|
| Location and shelf | So the sheet reads in the order you walk, and nobody hunts |
| Item | Named the way it's labeled on the shelf, not the way the invoice spells it |
| Count in | The unit you count: lb, can, each. One unit per item, always the same |
| Pack size | How many of that unit are in a full pack: 50 lb in a bag, 24 cans in a case |
| Full packs | Unopened cases, bags or boxes |
| Loose | Opened ones, weighed or counted |
| Total | Full packs × pack size + loose, worked out by the sheet |
| Counted by | Initials, so a strange number has somebody to ask |
| Notes | "Two cans dented", "bag split", "found behind the mixer" |
What's missing is the expected quantity, and that's on purpose. A counter who can see "expected: 60" and finds 58 tends to look around until they find two more, or writes 60 and moves on. It's called a blind count, and it's the single cheapest thing you can do to make counts honest. The expected numbers live on a second tab and only meet the counts afterwards.
An example, filled in
Here's Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, counted on Saturday, September 26, 2026, before anything was made:
| Location | Shelf | Item | Count in | Pack size | Full packs | Loose | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dry store | 1 | Bread flour | lb | 50 | 1 | 41 | 91 |
| Dry store | 1 | Sugar | lb | 50 | 0 | 33 | 33 |
| Dry store | 1 | Brown sugar | lb | 25 | 0 | 18 | 18 |
| Dry store | 2 | Instant yeast | lb | 1 | 3 | 0.4 | 3.4 |
| Dry store | 2 | Coconut milk | can | 24 | 2 | 12 | 60 |
| Walk-in | A | Butter | lb | 36 | 1 | 14 | 50 |
| Walk-in | A | Taro paste | kg | 1 | 0 | 24.9 | 24.9 |
| Walk-in | B | Grated taro | kg | 1 | 0 | 11.2 | 11.2 |
| Packaging | C | Bread bags | each | 500 | 0 | 250 | 250 |
| Packaging | C | Labels | each | 1,000 | 0 | 318 | 318 |
| Packaging | C | Kūlolo trays | each | 50 | 1 | 14 | 64 |
The coconut milk row shows why full and loose get separate columns: nobody has to work out 2 × 24 + 12 on the walk-in floor. They write 2 and 12, and the sheet says 60. The flour shows the other half of it. One sealed bag, plus 41 lb on the scale from the open one, is 91 lb, and the scale is faster and more honest than guessing how full a bag looks.
The Total formula, in H2, copied down:
=IF(AND(F2="",G2=""),"",N(F2)*E2+N(G2))
N() treats a blank as zero, so a row with loose units and no full packs still adds up. The IF keeps rows blank
until someone's counted them, which makes it obvious what's been missed.
Download the count sheet. It has a blank sheet to print, this example, and a variance tab that compares the count with the records. It's a plain Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Five habits that make the count right
- Count before production starts or after it stops. A count taken while the mixer's running is counting a moving target.
- Walk the same route every time, and put the sheet in that order. The day the sheet's in a different order from the shelves is the day a shelf gets skipped.
- Weigh open packs rather than eyeballing them. A half-empty bag of flour looks like anything from 15 to 35 lb.
- Two people beat one: one counts out loud, one writes. It's faster and they catch each other.
- Don't fix anything while counting. If the butter's in the wrong fridge, count it where it is and write a note.
For the whole routine, including how often to count what, see how to count inventory. If a full count is too much, a rolling cycle count covers a few items every week.
After the count
The count is only half the job. Back in the office, each total goes next to what your records say you should have, and the difference is the variance. Here, the taro paste came up 1.9 kg short ($7.30) and the butter 1.45 lb short ($5.80), and both are worth ten minutes of asking around. The sugar was short too, but at $1.46 it isn't worth an hour. The variance tab in the file does that sorting for you, and the formulas behind it are in the inventory variance formula.
When a gap won't explain itself, the usual suspects (a batch that was never recorded, bench flour, a spill) are in why inventory doesn't match.
Where this stops working
A paper count is only as good as the typing afterwards. Somebody has to carry the clipboard to the office and key in every number, and that's where 33 becomes 38 and a row gets skipped. Then the "expected" column has to come from somewhere, which means adding up a month of deliveries, batches and sales by hand before you can even start comparing. In a small kitchen with one person doing the books, that's a Sunday afternoon, every month.
And it doesn't scale well past one site. Two kitchens, or a market stall with its own stock, means two sheets, two sets of typing and two sets of numbers that have to be added together at the end.
How TaroStack does it
In TaroStack the count sheet is on the phone in your hand, or a tablet, or printed if you still like the clipboard. It works in the walk-in with no signal and sends itself when you're back in range, and you can type a number or scan a barcode with the phone's camera.
The Sunday afternoon disappears, because the expected quantity is already known. Every delivery received, every batch recorded and every sale has been adding and subtracting all month, so when the count comes in, TaroStack shows each difference and what it's worth in dollars before you post it. You see the $7.30 of taro paste before it becomes a number in your books, while there's still time to go and look behind the mixer. It also suggests what to count next, based on what it would cost to be wrong and how much has happened since anyone last looked, so the items that matter get counted more often.
Counting is on every plan, from $49 a month, and your item list imports from this sheet. Try it free for 30 days on your next count. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.