Ten kilos of tomatoes came in. Eight went into sauce. The last two were found rotten. Those two kilos left your stock without being sold — and unless you say so, your count will call them a mystery.
Waste and trim loss
Waste is the unplanned loss. You declare it when it happens.
Trim loss is the planned one — the peel on every onion. It lives in the recipe and is never declared. See Trim loss.
Declaring it
Open the product. Log waste.
Quantity and unit — any unit of the product's family. Two kilos of a product kept in grams is fine.
Reason — Spoiled, Expired, Overproduction, Damaged, or Other. Other asks for a note.
Day — when it was lost. Any day from the first of last month to today.
Note — optional, except for Other.
The stock goes down by that amount.
Its value is frozen
A loss is valued at the product's price on the day it is written. When the price moves next month, last month's loss keeps its value. What you lost is what it cost then.
Waste belongs to a count period
On Inventory Count, each line shows the waste of the period and the page shows Waste this period — everything declared since the last validated count, up to this one.
The counter starts again after each count. Nothing is lost: every declaration stays in the stock history.
A loss declared late
You find out on the 3rd that the tomatoes were thrown away on the 28th — after a count you already validated for the 30th.
Declare it on the 28th. The stock does not move: your count on the 30th already did not find those tomatoes. The loss is still recorded, and it still counts in that period's waste, so the gap your count found is explained.
Why bother
A count that is short by $400 is a question. A count short by $400, with $300 of declared waste, is a $100 question. Declared waste is the part of the gap you can explain — and the part you can act on.
Next
Recipes — where the planned losses live.