Restaurant Inventory Template

A restaurant inventory template helps you stay organized and keep costs down at your restaurant because inventory is one of the most significant expenses restaurants incur. In fact, the average venue spends between 20 and 40% of its revenue on food costs. For restaurants with more affordable ingredients, like flour for pizza dough, inventory costs will be on the lower end of that range, while restaurants that use premium ingredients, like sushi-grade fish, will spend closer to the higher end.

In short, one of the best ways to keep food costs down is to closely manage your inventory. But we know that’s easier said than done. TouchBistro’s 2024 Restaurant Report found that 58% of restaurateurs cited inventory costs as their number one source of financial strain. Our restaurant inventory template can help ease some of this burden.

What You’ll Find in This Restaurant Inventory Template Download

Our restaurant inventory template was designed to simplify inventory management. When you download the free template, you’ll get access to two PDFs: a blank template and a sample of a filled-in spreadsheet. These documents can help you track your existing inventory and stay on top of every incoming order.

Blank Inventory Template

After you download the document, at the top of the blank restaurant inventory template, you’ll find a header to help keep your records organized. Below that, you’ll see several columns, such as item name, unit price, and quantity in stock, that will guide you through your inventory count.

Sample Filled-In Inventory Spreadsheet

In the same PDF download, the second page illustrates how you should use this template, with some pre-filled rows, using example counts of a restaurant’s meat and poultry supplies.

How To Use and Customize These Restaurant Inventory Templates

Follow these steps to make the most of the templates:

1. Download and open the restaurant food inventory templates. 
2. At the top of the sheet of the first page, fill out the date of the inventory count, the names of the employees counting, and the category of supplies they’re counting.
3. Under Item Name, fill out the name of the item, such as “ground beef.”
4. In the optional Item Description column, you can add details about the item to differentiate it from others. For example, you could write the format the ground beef comes in (patty) or its weight (4 oz. or 8 oz.).
5. Under the Unit column, note how many items come in each unit of this product. For example, write “each” if you’re counting each beef patty in your inventory, or write “5 patties per box” if you’re counting per package.
6. Below Unit Price, write down how much each unit costs.
7. For the Quantity in Stock column, count inventory manually or look up supply levels in your POS system, and record them here.
8. Under Inventory Value, multiply the item’s unit price by the quantity you have in stock (the previous two columns).
9. Next,  in the Level to Reorder At column, record the item’s reorder point. When your inventory falls below this level, it’s time to place a new order.
10. In the Reorder Time column, write down how long, in days, it’ll take for a new shipment of that item to arrive at your restaurant.
11. Finally, under the Quantity in Reorder column, record how many units come in each new shipment.

To speed up inventory count, pre-fill details that don’t change. For example, you could create a template for your bar inventory by listing all of the items you always have in stock, their descriptions, units, reorder points, and reorder times. This creates a smoother inventory process for your team where all that’s left to do is fill in the date and employee’s name, update unit prices (these can change often), and update stock quantity.

You can also easily customize the template by copying and pasting the PDF headings into Google Sheets or Excel. This way you have the foundation for an inventory spreadsheet template and can add or change columns as needed for your restaurant and print them out for your employees to work from.

Managing – and counting – your inventory can be time consuming, but it’s worth it. You can save thousands of dollars a year through careful counts. Download this restaurant inventory template to speed up the process and save money.