Reports & Dashboards
Once Inventory is running, its reports turn all that activity into decisions — where you're losing product, what your real food cost is, and what setup still needs attention. This article covers the main reports and the alerts that bring them to you.
Where to find it
Inventory → Reports (and the Maintenance dashboard). Reports are per venue, so select a location first.
Variance report
What it answers: "Did we use more than we sold — and why?"
Variance compares two things between a pair of counts:
- Theoretical usage — what your sales should have consumed, based on recipes.
- Actual usage — what your counts say you actually used (opening count + what you received − closing count).
A large gap points to waste, over-portioning, or theft. Logging waste consistently is what lets you separate explained loss from the unexplained kind.
Tip: Variance is most useful between two clean, complete counts. Count on a regular schedule (weekly is common) to keep the numbers meaningful.
COGS & food-cost %
What it answers: "What are we actually spending to make what we sell?"
- Cost of goods sold (COGS) — totaled by menu item, category, or day, using the latest ingredient costs.
- Food-cost % — COGS as a percentage of sales, so you can spot dishes and categories with margin problems.
These numbers get more accurate as real prices flow in from confirmed invoices.
Maintenance dashboard
What it answers: "What still needs setting up or cleaning up?"
The maintenance dashboard surfaces gaps that make your other numbers less reliable, such as:
- Menu items without a recipe (so they can't deplete or cost).
- Items without a vendor mapping (so they can't be ordered or priced).
- Stale costs that haven't been updated in a while.
Work this list down periodically to keep your data trustworthy.
Scheduled alerts
From Inventory → Settings, you can schedule email digests so you don't have to log in to stay ahead:
- Low-stock — items at or below their reorder point.
- Variance — periodic variance summaries.
- Maintenance — outstanding setup gaps.
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