Inventory guides
Inventory for cafés and small kitchens
Countstead is an inventory app for cafés, bakeries, bars and small kitchens on iPhone and iPad. Count ingredients in kilograms, litres or packs, record best-before dates, write off waste with a reason, and see what is running low. It works offline in a cold room or cellar, with no account needed.
For small food and drink businesses that count their own stock. Countstead records what you enter; it does not read sales from a till or use up ingredients through recipes.
Download Countstead for iPhone or iPadGet the printable count sheet
Set up your kitchen
In setup, choose Food and drink. Countstead suggests kilograms as the unit and names your first location Dry store; change either if they don’t fit.
Add each ingredient in the unit you buy it in. The unit list has each, pcs, kg, L, box, g, ml, case, bag and bottle, and you can type your own. Quantities take decimals, so half a bag of flour can be 12.5 kg.
If your stock list is already in a spreadsheet, export it as CSV and import it instead of typing it in.
One location is free. To count the fridge, freezer and bar separately, add them in Settings → Locations; more than one location requires Countstead Pro. With one location, count every storage area together as one total.
Count where the stock is
Take your iPhone into the cold room or cellar. Countstead keeps working without a signal, so you can count shelf by shelf and the totals save on the device.
Open an item, tap Count, and enter what is actually there. The count is added to the item’s history next to the deliveries and waste, so the original entries stay visible. If you prefer paper, print the count sheet, count, and enter the numbers afterwards.
Countstead Pro adds guided counts, which walk you through the items in a location one by one.
Working out what you used in a week
Most cafés don’t record every latte. Instead, they record deliveries and waste as they happen and count at the end of the week. What you used is the opening count plus deliveries, minus waste, minus the closing count.
Countstead keeps each of those as its own entry, so the history shows when the delivery came, why the milk was thrown away, and what the count found. You do the sum yourself: the app doesn’t turn a count into usage.
| Entry | Litres | On hand |
|---|---|---|
| Monday count | 30 | 30 |
| Wednesday delivery (stock in) | +24 | 54 |
| Thursday, 2 L spoiled (stock out, reason Spoiled) | −2 | 52 |
| Sunday count | 18 | 18 |
| Used this week: 30 + 24 − 2 − 18 | 34 |
Use the stock that expires first
Give each item a best-before date where you keep it. If the same cream is in the fridge and the bar, each location has its own date. Record the sooner date when two deliveries overlap, and change it once that stock is gone.
Countstead marks stock Soon from three days before the date and Expired after it. Turn on Expiring soon in the Items filters, or open Reports, to see what to use first. Stock you no longer have drops off the list.
Countstead Pro adds low-stock and expiry alerts on this device, so you get a notification without opening the app.
Record waste with a reason
When stock leaves without being sold, remove it and choose a reason: Waste, Spoiled, Broken, Staff use, Theft, Sample or Other. Sale is there too, for stock you do sell by the unit.
The Waste and loss card in Reports adds up the last 30 days by reason. If your items carry a unit cost, it also shows roughly what was lost, using today’s cost. A week of Spoiled entries on dairy points at a fridge that runs warm; a row of Broken at the bar points at glassware.
See what is running low
Set a low-stock level for each item at each location. When the count or a stock out takes it to that level or below, the item appears in the Low Stock view in Reports.
To pick a level, start from how much you use between deliveries and how long a delivery takes. The free calculators below do the arithmetic. Countstead Pro adds reorder suggestions from your usage.
What Countstead doesn’t do
It doesn’t connect to a till or POS, so selling a coffee doesn’t take milk off the count. It has no recipes, so baking a batch doesn’t use up flour and butter for you; record those as stock out, or let the weekly count catch them.
Countstead doesn’t create purchase orders or send them anywhere, and it keeps no food safety records such as fridge temperatures. Everyone who updates stock uses your own devices; there are no separate staff logins.
Common questions
- Can I track ingredients in kilograms and litres?
- Yes. Choose kg, g, L or ml as the item’s unit, or each, case, bag or bottle for packed stock. Quantities take up to three decimal places, so a part-used bag of flour can be counted as 12.5 kg.
- Can Countstead track expiry dates for food?
- Yes. Each item can have a best-before date at each location. Countstead marks it Soon from three days before and Expired after, and the Expiring soon filter shows what to use first. Alerts on this device are part of Countstead Pro.
- Does it work in a cold room or cellar with no signal?
- Yes. Countstead keeps your inventory on the iPhone or iPad and every count, delivery and waste entry works offline. No account is needed for local use.
- Will it take ingredients off when I sell a drink?
- No. Countstead has no recipes and doesn’t connect to a till, so sales aren’t deducted automatically. Record deliveries and waste as they happen, then count weekly to see what you used.
- Is Countstead free for a small café?
- Countstead is free for up to 30 active items at one location, including counts, best-before dates, waste reasons and the Low Stock view. Countstead Pro adds more items and locations, expiry alerts on this device, reorder suggestions and guided counts.
Try the inventory demo
Add an item and record stock movements in the browser. The demo is a working example; camera scanning is simulated.
Try the inventory demoAbout this guide
Written by Imdad Ismail, an independent developer in Sri Lanka who makes Countstead. Where a guide gives steps in Countstead, they match the version on the App Store. To report a mistake, email [email protected].