Stocktaking Isn’t Optional- It’s Operational Gold
Stocktaking isn’t just counting boxes- it’s counting cash. When done consistently and accurately, it’s one of the most powerful tools you have to control costs, spot issues early, and drive profitability. Without stocktaking, you’re guessing at your inventory value and flying blind on usage and waste. With it, you get a clear picture of what’s being used, what’s missing, and where your biggest opportunities lie. It helps uncover theft, spoilage, over-portioning, and even ordering mistakes before they become expensive problems. You wouldn’t run a bank without balancing the books—don’t run your kitchen without balancing your shelves.
How Often Should You Do It?
Weekly: For high-volume locations or if you’re working to tighten variances, weekly stocktakes (especially for high-cost items like protein, alcohol, or premium ingredients) give you control and allow for quick course correction.
Biweekly: A solid rhythm for many restaurants- balances accuracy with time investment.
Monthly: At minimum, you should complete a full stocktake monthly, aligned with your financial reporting. But don’t expect to catch issues in real-time with this cadence alone.
🔑 TOP TIP: Focus more frequent counts on your top 10–20% of items that represent 80% of your spend. You don’t need to count toothpicks every week, but you do need eyes on your ribeye.
Counting your stock in Nory is the best way to stay in the know on all things inventory and make sure you’re running a profitable business.
🔑 TOP TIP: Nory allows you to count stock using the web application on your laptop, but the fastest way is the Nory IM mobile apps on Android and iOS phones.
How to count stock
Tap the inventory icon, then the Counts tab. Next, tap the “New count” button to start a new count, or or select a draft count to continue a previously saved count.
🔑TOP TIP: To save time in your stock take, set up a template!
Using the web app on your laptop? : Click the basket icon in the left sidebar:
Start a new count by pressing the “New count” button in the top right corner of the screen, or select a draft count to continue a previously saved count.
Count Date
Choose the date that you want the count to register on.
🔑TOP TIP: In most cases this would be the day you are counting but in some cases you may wish to use a date in the future. An example of this would be if you have an offsite storage area that you want to count prior to doing your main count onsite.
Count Template
Count Type
You can choose to count on a weekly or monthly basis. If you select weekly then Nory will use the closing values from the last weekly count as the opening values for the current count.
If monthly is selected then Nory will use the closing values from the last monthly count as the opening values for the current count.
Count Time
The count time dictates which sales data and stock movements are considered in the reconciliation report. Before sales means Nory will only take into account stock movements (waste, transfers & invoices)and sales up until the beginning of the date selected. After Sales accounts for all stock movements and sales until the end of the date selected.
🔑TOP TIP: If your stock period is Monday to Sunday and you count on Sunday use After sales, If you count on Monday Morning use Before Sales
If item is not counted
In cases where you have a large number of items to count and you only want or need to count a select number of lines on a regular basis you can select Use estimates. This option means that if you do not count a line then NOry will estimate the value you have in stock taking into account your opening value, sales, waste and transfers. You can select Set as zero if you would like Nory to assume you do not have any stock of an item unless you count it.
Counting stock
If your stock is separated into storage areas in the restaurant, you can use the storage areas dropdown to filter the list.
Hard-to-find items? Type item names into the search bar.
👀 Please note that your count auto-saves
Reopening a draft count
All draft counts are displayed on the counts list, marked as “draft”.
To reopen a draft count, choose that count from the list.
When reopening a draft count, you can edit its date and “day start” / “day end” time.
Completing the stock count
To complete a count, click “Finish”.
Next, Nory will display a reconciliation report showing the status of your inventory and changes since the previous stock count.
📖 learn more about the reconciliation report here: A guide to stock reconciliation investigation.
If you have made a mistake with the count settings they can be amending in the reconciliation report that is created once the count is complete.
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On the web app click back to count
On he IM app click the pencil Icon
Then click edit settings
You will be directed back to the settings page to make the necessary amendments.
📖 Learn more about: Counting stock in Nory: Multiple people counting
📖 Learn more about: Creating and Editing Storage Areas
📖 Learn more about: Comparing Inventory counts in Nory