A weekly food-cost close is a period you can defend, not a percentage you like. The same start and end have to cover the counts, the invoices, the transfers, and the sales. AKLI runs that identity per branch from stock and recipes. The close below is the same identity, written as the checklist a group lead can run before anyone argues about the number.
Why the week is the unit
A month hides a bad delivery inside three good ones. A day is too short for a count most kitchens will actually do. A week is long enough for invoices to land and short enough that a chef still remembers the service. Use one week, the same week, everywhere. Opening plus purchases minus closing is the COGS formula. Divided by food sales, that cost is how to calculate food cost percentage. You can rerun the inputs in the food cost calculator. Nothing typed there is stored.
What usually breaks the close
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A credit note dated into next week, so this week’s purchases stay high.
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A transfer the commissary sent and the outlet did not receive. One percentage falls, the other rises, and neither kitchen changed how it cooked. The production side of that ledger is central production.
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A goods-received note that never happened, so the invoice quantity entered stock. That is purchasing and goods received, not a waste problem.
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Sales that include beverage, which lowers the percentage without changing the kitchen.
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Theoretical cost from last quarter’s recipe card. If the invoice moved and the card did not, the variance is a paperwork gap. Recipe costing is the card that moves with the invoice. A price that moves before the close is a supplier price change in the same week, not a waste entry.
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Quantities sold have to be a sales file matched to recipes, or theoretical cost for the week is a guess.
An illustration, not a result
Opening stock SAR 12,000, purchases SAR 8,000, closing stock SAR 9,000, food sales SAR 35,000. Cost of goods sold is SAR 11,000. Actual food cost is 31.4%. If theoretical food cost for the same week was 28%, variance is 3.4 percentage points. These figures are an illustration. They are not an AKLI customer, and they are not a target. A bakery and a steakhouse will not sit on the same percentage, and this site does not publish one.
If logged waste for that week is a few hundred riyals and the variance is several thousand, the rest is still unnamed: portioning, comps, a count, or an invoice. Forcing the waste log to explain the gap makes both numbers useless. The split is theoretical versus actual food cost and waste and variance.
Excel will hold the close once
A single workbook can compute 31.4% if one person types every cell. It does not notice that the outlet’s file and the commissary’s file disagree about the transfer, and it does not rebuild recipe cost when the chicken invoice changes. That is the difference between a costing sheet and an inventory workbook that has become the operation. The category comparison is AKLI versus Excel-only inventory. AKLI is still not your general ledger. Export the week as CSV or Excel if finance wants the figures in the books.
What the numbered steps are for
The steps at the end of this page are the close in order. They do not add a promised reduction, a benchmark, or a customer story. Run them the same way next week. A percentage you can compare with last week is the result. The month those weeks add up to is a restaurant P&L. Food cost control is the product page for the same job, priced per branch, not per user.
Close food cost for the week
Produce one actual food-cost percentage and one theoretical figure for the same week, then name the gap without inventing a single cause.
- Freeze the period. Pick the week’s start and end and use them for the opening count, the closing count, purchases, transfers, and food sales. Do not mix a calendar month of sales with a count that ended on a different day.
- Count at cost. Opening inventory is last week’s close. Closing inventory is what you count at the end of this week, valued at cost, not at menu price. Beverage can sit in its own count if the percentage is meant to manage the kitchen.
- Sum purchases and movements. Add supplier invoices for food that landed in the week. Subtract credit notes that correct this week, not next week. Add transfers in and subtract transfers out. A delivery you rejected is not a purchase.
- Sum food sales. Use retail sales of food in the same week. Leave beverage out of the denominator if you want a number a chef can act on. Leave labor out of the numerator.
- Compute actual food cost. Cost of goods sold equals opening inventory plus purchases minus closing inventory. Food cost percentage equals that cost divided by food sales, times 100. The arithmetic is the same one on the food cost calculator.
- Compute theoretical cost. Theoretical cost is recipe cost times quantity sold. Quantities come from a POS sales import or a CSV. Without quantities you still have plate cost. You do not have theoretical food cost for the week.
- Name the gap, do not collapse it. Variance is actual cost of goods minus theoretical cost. Logged waste, a short delivery, portioning, comps, and a bad count are separate explanations. Do not edit the waste log until it equals the variance.
Questions operators ask
What has to share the same week?
The same start and end have to cover the counts, the invoices, the transfers, and the sales. Do not mix a calendar month of sales with a count that ended on a different day.
How is actual food cost computed for the week?
Cost of goods sold equals opening inventory plus purchases minus closing inventory. Food cost percentage equals that cost divided by food sales, times 100. Leave beverage out of the denominator if you want a number a chef can act on, and leave labor out of the numerator.
Should the waste log be edited until it equals the variance?
No. Variance is actual cost of goods minus theoretical cost. Logged waste, a short delivery, portioning, comps, and a bad count are separate explanations. Do not edit the waste log until it equals the variance.