Consistency Matters
What you count needs to be consistent every time you take inventory. Use your Garde count sheets to keep full inventory counts separate from any mid-period spot counts. If a product shows up on one inventory but not another, Garde reports it as zero for the period when it wasn’t counted. So when comparing inventories, always compare apples to apples: spot counts to spot counts, full counts to full counts.
Spot inventories are great for tracking key items between periods, but only end-of-period inventories can be posted to accounting.
When you close an inventory, it becomes eligible to post as an inventory adjustment journal entry. Someone with Manager or Restaurant Admin status in Garde must review it before posting.
Once posted, the inventory can no longer be modified in Garde. Make sure everything looks right before you hit that button.
Process all invoices first. Before posting inventory to accounting, make sure every invoice for the period has been entered and processed in Garde. If invoices are missing, your product costs won’t be up to date, which means your COGS calculations will be off. Take five minutes to verify — it’s worth it.
Entering the Correct Inventory Date
A full inventory is typically done on the last day of each accounting period, after the close of business.
Getting the dates right matters. When you enter counts into Garde, the date you choose represents the last day of business included in that inventory.
Your ending inventory on the last day of a period automatically becomes the starting inventory for the next period. Reports in Garde will reflect a one-day offset from the date the inventory was taken.
Posting Inventory = Posting Adjustments
When you post inventory to accounting, Garde doesn’t send the full value of your inventory. It posts an inventory adjustment entry — a journal entry that records the difference between the value of your last posted inventory and the value of your current inventory.
These adjustments are sent as journal entries that affect the expense and inventory asset categories mapped on your Accounting > Categories page.
Here’s an example:
An increase in inventory value between the starting and ending inventory for a category gets logged as a debit to that category’s inventory account and a credit to that category’s COGS account.
A decrease in inventory value works the other way: a credit to the inventory (asset) account and a debit to the COGS account.
In the example above, beverages went up by 662.29—sothejournalentrydebits662.29 to the beverages inventory account and credits $662.29 to the beverages COGS account.
Misc. food went down by 24.27—sothejournalentrycredits24.27 to the misc. food inventory account and debits $24.27 to the misc. food COGS account.
Inventory adjustments will appear in your budgets and can be viewed in detail under Accounting > Inventory entries.
Mapping Your Inventory Accounts
Before you can post inventory to accounting, you need to map your inventory accounts so Garde knows where to send the adjustments in your accounting system (QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop).
Go to Accounting > Categories. You’ll see your Garde categories and how they’re mapped to your chart of accounts. To the right of the “Accounting System Account” column, look for the “Inventory accounts” column. Double-click the field to open a dropdown and select the inventory account that corresponds with each category.
Ready to Post!
To post an inventory adjustment, go to Inventory > Inventory Summary and select the Starting Inventory and Ending Inventory you want to post an adjustment for.
- You need at least 2 inventories in Garde before you can post an adjustment (since adjustments measure the difference between two inventories).
- Only adjustments between end-of-period inventories can be posted.
A note on dates: since the ending inventory of one period serves as the starting inventory of the next, the starting inventory date shown on this screen will be one day after the actual count date. (For example, if you counted on 8/9, it shows as 8/10 because it’s acting as the starting value for the next period.)
Once you’ve selected your starting and ending inventories, click the “Post to Accounting” button.
After posting, inventory adjustments get exported to your accounting system just like invoices and sales entries. You can set this to export manually or automatically by going to Setup > Integrations and clicking on your accounting system (highlighted in green).
