What is the best way to take expired food items out of inventory?

[erinandrews]

Hello,

We are a coffee shop that outsources for food and pastry items. Currently I am entering all incoming pastries, sandwiches, etc to inventory stock daily. What is the best way to take items out of inventory for spoilage? Do I take them out manually and choose "loss" as the option for removing them from stock? Or should I ring them up as a "comp" sale and add an "expired" option in the comp reasons?

Thank you for your help!

[Chad]

Hey @erinandrews! I'm sorry that no one has followed up with you. 

This is an interesting question, because it really comes down how you want to track the spoiled items. It's a question that really doesn't have a wrong answer. 🙂

I see both options as smart, I would use the loss option to avoid confusion if you comp a lot of items. If you don't the comp option would be a good idea, because then you can track how many pastries have gone to waste. 

Might be useful date if you want to adjust how many pastries you order in the future? 

[mistyjones8]

If you take expired food out of your square as loss, does it show in your reports somewhere?

[Helen]

@mistyjones8 There isn't a report that will show you when you've adjusted your stock levels and selected the reason 'Loss'.

I'm wondering if, as a workaround, could you create a comp reason for 'Expired' and then comp the sale for those items? (You can process a $0.00 'sale' for comped items.) You can then view the Comps report from your online Square Dashbaord. I'll keep an eye out for any other workarounds!