Stock Management Pro
Complete raw material inventory management across five tabs — track every ingredient, conduct physical stock takes, raise purchase orders to suppliers, maintain a supplier directory, and view AI-assisted demand forecasts so you never run short or over-order.
Why Stock Management Matters
Food cost is typically the largest controllable expense in a restaurant, averaging 28–35% of revenue. Without a structured inventory system, kitchens routinely face two expensive problems simultaneously: running out of ingredients mid-service (which means disappointed customers, cancelled orders, and wasted prep time) and over-ordering perishables (which means wastage, spoilage, and money thrown away). Manual tracking on notebooks or spreadsheets helps, but only if updated religiously — and in a busy kitchen, that discipline breaks down quickly.
Unavakam's Stock Management module gives you a live inventory ledger that updates automatically as orders are completed. When your kitchen fulfils an order containing Chicken Biryani, the system deducts the configured quantity of chicken, basmati rice, onion, and spices from your stock levels automatically — if you've set up the item linkage. This means at any point during the day, you can open the Stock screen and see your true current stock levels, not a number from this morning's manual count that is already hours out of date.
The Five Tabs
The Stock page is organised into five tabs, each handling a distinct part of the inventory workflow. Understanding how these tabs work together gives you a complete picture of the stock management cycle.
Tab 1 — Stock Items
This is the master list of every raw material and ingredient your kitchen uses. Each stock item represents a single ingredient — not a dish, but an ingredient. For example: "Chicken (kg)", "Basmati Rice (kg)", "Cooking Oil (litre)", "Onions (kg)", "Cumin Seeds (g)". For each item you track the current quantity on hand, the unit of measurement, the reorder threshold (the minimum quantity below which you need to order more), and the cost per unit (for food cost calculations).
The stock item can optionally be linked to a menu item — this is what enables automatic stock deduction when orders are fulfilled. When you link "Chicken (kg)" to the menu item "Chicken Biryani" and specify that each portion uses 0.25 kg of chicken, every time a Chicken Biryani order is completed the system deducts 0.25 kg from your chicken stock. Over the course of a service, your live stock level stays accurate without manual intervention.
Tab 2 — Stock Take
A stock take is a physical inventory count — you or a staff member physically counts every item in the kitchen and enters the actual quantity found. Unavakam's stock take tool creates a guided session for this process. You go through each item in the list, enter the physically counted quantity, and the system calculates the variance: the difference between what the system says you should have and what you actually found.
Variance highlights are critical. A large negative variance (you have less than the system says) may indicate unrecorded wastage, theft, or items consumed without being entered as an order. A positive variance may indicate a previous stock count was entered incorrectly, or a supplier delivered more than invoiced. Regular stock takes — weekly or fortnightly — keep your inventory data accurate and catch problems early when they're small.
Tab 3 — Purchase Orders
When stock levels drop below the reorder threshold, you need to order from a supplier. The Purchase Orders tab is where you create, track, and manage all supplier orders. A purchase order (PO) lists the items you're ordering, the quantities, and the supplier you're ordering from. Once created, you can send it directly to the supplier via email or WhatsApp from within Unavakam. When the delivery arrives, you mark the PO as "Received" and the ordered quantities are automatically added to your stock levels — no manual updating required.
Tab 4 — Suppliers
Your complete vendor directory. Each supplier record stores their name, contact phone, email address, delivery schedule, payment terms (e.g. "30 days credit", "cash on delivery"), and the list of stock items they supply. Having all supplier information in one place means you don't need to search for a phone number when you need to call about a delayed delivery. The supplier directory is also used when creating purchase orders — you select the supplier from this list and only items linked to that supplier appear as ordering options.
Tab 5 — Forecast
The Forecast tab uses your historical order data to project how much of each ingredient you will need over the next 7 days. It looks at the past 4–6 weeks of order patterns, accounting for day-of-week trends (weekends typically have higher demand) and recent growth trends. For each stock item, it shows the projected demand and the recommended purchase quantity — calculated as the projected demand minus your current stock level, with a safety buffer added to prevent running short.
For example, if the forecast projects you will sell 30 kg of chicken next week and you currently have 5 kg on hand, the recommended purchase is 30 - 5 + 3 (safety buffer) = 28 kg. You can then create a purchase order directly from the forecast view for the items that need to be ordered.
Setting Up Stock Items — Every Field Explained
When you add a new stock item, the form asks for several fields. Each one serves a specific purpose in the inventory tracking system.
Item Name
The name of the ingredient, including the unit in parentheses for clarity — e.g. "Chicken (kg)", "Cooking Oil (litre)", "All-Purpose Flour (kg)". Including the unit in the name helps everyone reading the stock list understand what quantity is being discussed without having to check the unit field separately.
Unit of Measurement
The unit in which you buy, store, and measure this ingredient. Common options: kg, g, litre, ml, pieces/nos, dozen. Choose the unit that matches how your kitchen measures it for cooking. If you buy eggs by the dozen but the kitchen uses them individually, use "piece" or "nos" as the unit and convert quantities at purchase time.
Current Quantity
The quantity you have right now, in the unit you specified. This is the opening stock when you first set up the item. After setup, this field is updated automatically as orders are fulfilled (if you've linked the item to menu items) and manually through stock takes and purchase order receipts. Enter the actual quantity you count physically today — don't guess.
Reorder Level
The minimum quantity below which you want to be alerted that it's time to order more. If you set the reorder level for chicken to 2 kg, as soon as your chicken stock drops below 2 kg, the item will be highlighted with a Low Stock badge. Setting the right reorder level requires knowing your typical daily consumption and your supplier's delivery lead time. If your chicken supplier needs 24 hours' notice and you use 3 kg per day, set the reorder level to at least 6 kg (2 days' cover) to give yourself safe ordering time.
Cost Per Unit
The price you pay your supplier per unit of this ingredient. This is used by the system to calculate the food cost of your menu items — if you know how much of each ingredient goes into a dish (via the menu item link), and you know the cost per unit of each ingredient, the system can calculate the exact ingredient cost per dish and compare it against the selling price to show you your food cost percentage. Keeping this updated when supplier prices change ensures your cost calculations stay accurate.
Link to Menu Item
This is the configuration that enables automatic stock deduction. Select the menu item that uses this ingredient, and then enter the quantity of this ingredient used per portion. For example, link "Chicken (kg)" to the menu item "Chicken Biryani" and enter 0.25 (meaning each Biryani uses 250g of chicken). You can link one stock item to multiple menu items — for example, chicken might be used in Chicken Biryani, Chicken Tikka, Butter Chicken, and Chicken Fried Rice, each with their own per-portion quantity.
Complete Workflows
How to add a new stock item
Go to Stock → Stock Items tab → click "Add Item"
The add stock item form opens. This is separate from the menu items form — stock items are ingredients, not dishes.
Fill in name, unit, current quantity, and reorder level
These four fields are required. Enter a descriptive name (e.g. "Tomatoes (kg)"), select the unit (kg), enter your current stock (e.g. 5), and set the reorder level (e.g. 2 — alert when below 2 kg).
Enter cost per unit and link to menu items
Enter the current purchase cost (e.g. ₹30 per kg). In the Link to Menu Items section, search for and select the menu items that use tomatoes, and enter the per-portion usage (e.g. 0.1 kg per portion of Tomato Soup, 0.05 kg per portion of Pasta).
Save
The item appears in the Stock Items list. If the current quantity is already below the reorder level, it will immediately show a Low Stock badge.
How to conduct a stock take
Go to Stock → Stock Take tab → click "Start Stock Take"
A new stock take session opens. All stock items in your master list appear with their current system-recorded quantity shown alongside an empty "Actual Count" field.
Physically count each item in your kitchen and storage areas
Go to each storage area — dry store, refrigerator, freezer, bar — and count the actual physical quantity of each item. Enter the counted amount in the Actual Count field as you go. You can do this from a phone or tablet in the kitchen while walking around.
Review the variance column
As you enter counts, the Variance column updates automatically: Actual minus System. A negative variance (red) means you have less than expected — investigate why. A positive variance (green) means you have more than expected — likely a receipt wasn't entered or a previous count was wrong.
Click "Apply Adjustments" to complete the stock take
All system quantities are updated to match your counted quantities. The stock take session is saved with a timestamp for your records. Future stock tracking starts from these corrected baseline numbers.
How to raise a Purchase Order
Go to Stock → Purchase Orders → click "New PO"
Alternatively, go to the Forecast tab, find an item that needs ordering, and click "Order Now" — this pre-populates a PO with the recommended quantity.
Select the supplier
Choose from your Suppliers directory. The supplier's contact details and payment terms are shown. Only items linked to this supplier appear in the item selection dropdown below.
Add line items with quantities
Click "Add Item" and select each stock item you need to order. Enter the quantity to order. The system shows the current stock level and reorder threshold alongside each item so you can make informed decisions about how much to order.
Send the PO to the supplier
Click "Send PO". A professionally formatted PDF purchase order is generated automatically. Choose whether to send via Email (system emails it to the supplier's email on file) or WhatsApp (opens WhatsApp with the PDF attached). The PO status changes to Sent.
Receive the delivery — mark the PO as Received
When the supplier's delivery arrives, open the PO, verify the quantities delivered match what was ordered, and click "Mark as Received". The system adds the received quantities to your stock levels automatically. The PO status changes to Received and is archived in your PO history.