Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Nightly or Weekly inventory?

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Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 12-01-2004, 09:54 PM:

Whose theatre does which?

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 12-01-2004, 09:59 PM:

Weekly. If inventory problems were to start occuring again (we've had them in the past) I would switch to nightly but at the moment its not necessary.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 12-01-2004, 10:02 PM:

Dunno what you all think, but the only SAFE way to control inventory is to track and count nightly... I've done this for years now... even doing so nightly, I could not pinpoint a theif who wound up walking away with a LOT of money... [Frown]

Keep one thing in mind when it comes to people and cash... the only person you can TRULY trust is yourself...

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-01-2004, 10:12 PM:

Nightly inventory is the only way to go in this day and age. [Frown]

I've even worked in places where we needed such strict controls that inventory was done at shift change.

Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 12-01-2004, 10:15 PM:

At shift change? How did you manage that and get the cash-outs done and not have to be there until all hours, especially on a Saturday?

We do nightly inventory not so much to detect theft, but to detect stupid mistakes that the cashiers make, even after we've trained them and in some cases written them up about it.

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 12-01-2004, 10:18 PM:

Nightly! Weekly inventories are like rolling the dice at the craps table ... wonder how it'll come up this week.

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 12-01-2004, 11:20 PM:

I keep my inventory overage/shortage under .5% doing it weekly. At the moment I have 0 problems. If it were to get out of control again I would immediatly switch to nightly.

Of course I only have one full time assistant at the moment and I'm running a 12 plex, so time constraints might just have something to do with my opinion on inventory.

Posted by David Yauch (Member # 2754) on 12-01-2004, 11:23 PM:

We do it nightly, but we sort of have to with the amount of employees we have. If something turns up missing, we can watch cameras and get someone in trouble and we're only watching a day of footage. Inventory usually stays within .15% which is pretty good considering its a 25-plex with a few different managers working inventory shifts.

Posted by Stephanie M. Brosche (Member # 1982) on 12-02-2004, 01:07 AM:

We're a small 10 plex and we never have inventory problems, but we are forced to do inventory nightly. The odd thing is, our chain has just under 20 theatres, and only 2 or 3 of the locations have to do nightly inventory. Doesn't make sense to me, but that's why I'm not making the 'big bucks'. Doing inventory nightly has help us catch the one or two theives we've had pretty quickly though, so I guess there's something to be said for it. Just think it should uniform throughout the company is all. [Confused]

Posted by Chase Hanson (Member # 2779) on 12-02-2004, 03:41 AM:

I know we do ours weekly.

I dont actually participate, but im usually closing with the Inventory Team and they generally get their stuff reconciled pretty fast, which indicates that the numbers are reasonable.

Posted by R. Andrew Diercks (Member # 1725) on 12-02-2004, 07:43 AM:

I always did weekly until taking a 9plex and now I would never go back. It is so much faster and easier to catch problems and you can pinpoint at least the day a problem occurred which can help narrow down employees possible.

Posted by Chris Brown (Member # 2800) on 12-02-2004, 11:44 AM:

Even though I really dont think it's warranted, we do an inventory twice a day, once at midshift, once at the end of the night. The midshift one is not a full buliding inventory, however. We just inventory the stock behind one of the concession stands. Still a pain though, especially if you have shows up until 5:30 or later, and everyone is out at 6.

Like I said, I really dont think it's necessary. I mean even if midshift is way off, its the end of the night that matters. I've had midshift inventories that were hundreds of bucks off, only to have the nightly turn out almost perfect.

If it were me running the place, I'd go with nightly. Not my call though.

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 12-14-2004, 10:42 AM:

At all the theatres I ever worked at, we did inventory nightly. I can't fathom how a weekly inventory could ever be accurate when sometimes employee mistakes from one night add up to so much money. The total of operator errors over a week would cause such a wild swing you'd never know where the problems were.

I have spoken with a few managers at other companies who said that even when their home office required them to take a weekly inventory, they still maintained counts on a nightly basis to be able to pinpoint the problems and explain shortages.

Posted by Dan Costello (Member # 2124) on 12-15-2004, 02:12 PM:

We have always done nightly inventory with cash at the local 8-plex, but in the recent months we have also started doing a daily inventory on candy, water, juice, etc. This common anywhere else?

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 12-15-2004, 05:54 PM:

You don't count cups and bags?

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 12-15-2004, 10:08 PM:

A nightly inventory with cash? That's basically just counting the drawers, isn't it?

Posted by Dan Costello (Member # 2124) on 12-16-2004, 10:12 AM:

what would be the point of counting cups and bags?

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 12-16-2004, 10:16 AM:

I do it for fun!

Posted by Andy Aggieri (Member # 2398) on 12-16-2004, 10:34 AM:

quote: Dan Costello
what would be the point of counting cups and bags?

Don't you want to know if your cashiers are ringing up cups and bags correctly, are people walking out with your product? A bag or cup may not cost much, but what about all the sales you lost when they walked out.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 12-16-2004, 11:25 AM:

Dan,

For theatres who keep any type of formal inventory, counting the cups and bags (or tubs where applicable) is the only TRUE method of knowing how your inventory stands on a daily basis. Not counting salable items and only reconciling cash is a recipe that only breeds theft in it's purest form.

You could very well be thousands of $$$$ short without even knowing it if a stock count isn't done on a regualr basis. At a smaller theatre I can see maybe that a once/week count would suffice, however, at larger theatres nothing short of a nightly count is acceptable, IMO.

Posted by Jason M Miller (Member # 2597) on 12-16-2004, 01:06 PM:

We do the sellables twice a week and non-selleables once a week, if it is bad then we goto nightlies

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 12-16-2004, 02:47 PM:

WHen I ran a theater I had done it this way...

Full Morning inventory, to verify no theft overnight.

Day shift inventory, done by each person that comes on shift to verify thier own personal inventory.

Evening shift inventory, done by both day and evening shift personnel to ensure personal inventories.

Full Closing Inventory.

It is quick and effective, if you limit the stock on hand to staff, and properly organize your back stock and limit access to that.

I never spent more than one hour per day TOTAL on inventory, and my staff never spent more than 20 minutes per day total each person on inventory.

As a result, I never had more than 0.02 PERCENT inventory loss. Just knowing that you were going to be held accountable BY YOUR JOB if your stuff came up missing, kept the employees not just honest, but ON THE BALL as well.

Each concessionist was responsible for thier candy, bag and cup allottment. During rush times when we had soda jerks and popcorn baggers, they were responsible for thier allotment, not the concessionist, however the concessionist was responsible to provide a bag and or cup voucher to the bagger/jerk to account for the allotments. The cashier was required to account for thier bag/cup voucher allottments, as if they were bags and or cups.

I ran the counter like a bank runs thiers. Full accountability. It sounds like a lot of trouble, but it really isnt. The system when in place correctly runs very smoothly.

I also had very low turnover. WIth all the checks and balances in place, there was no problems with any trust issues. As a result, we all trusted each other, no in fighting, no need for terminations for theft, no mass exodus, etc. In four years I had a total turnover of six people.

ciao baby

dave

Posted by Adam Heath (Member # 2910) on 12-23-2004, 03:06 PM:

We count out each station per shift...complete building inventory nightly. With RTS it is real easy to set up the inventory for each register. Our overage/shortage for 2003 was
($36.00). This year won't even be close to that but it will still be under 2 percent. I've never had anything even close to these numbers at any of the other theaters I have worked.

Posted by Matthew Peters (Member # 1495) on 12-24-2004, 08:17 AM:

At the theatre I’m working for we do a counter stocktake twice daily… includes popcorn buckets and drink cups as well. Although it’s more for working out sales than anything else… still in the dark ages, no point of sale or even a cash-drawer, the notes just float along the rear counter in a sea of money. So you just count what stock is left out at the end of the shift and work out what you should have sold, add it up (by hand) and check if it matches the cash taken.

But we do have a pseudo “building inventory” spread over a week or two, basically 3 items are counted per day and these items are rotated so at the end of a week or two all items would have been checked.

Posted by Brent Mahaney (Member # 1090) on 12-26-2004, 12:01 PM:

I have done both weekly and nightly inventories, and I don't understand why anybody would want to do it on a weekly basis. You're just asking for it.

If a concessions person is having trouble paying the rent and decides to phantom sell for a few extra dollars, you are going to be able to catch them more easily if you track your inventory daily. At the very least, you can narrow it down to a couple of shifts.

Posted by Jim Ziegler (Member # 86) on 12-29-2004, 03:32 PM:

Sometimes inventory control can get out of hand.. Some examples:

When I worked for Century, we did nightlies that cost more in payroll (with CA labor laws, everyone was on overtime) that the shortages they prevented.

At a 20 screen I was working at in KC, our concession department head set up a very elaborate station inventory that was taking her hours a night to wade through, and she was still having massive shortages (hit 10% of sales one week) - clearly those hours were wasted. Obviously, she was busted down. My ushers and I took it over, threw out her inventory system, and all but one of her employees, and shortages were back down below 0.5%.

No matter how much work you put into your inventory, a creative employee can still rip you off. Sometimes nightlies are necessary, but, they are not a cure all. I have found that the easiest way to combat shortages is not thorough complex inventory systems, but by more careful selection of employees.

Posted by David Yauch (Member # 2754) on 12-29-2004, 08:52 PM:

We count everything nightly, and cups for each register after every shift. Bags are counted per "team" of 3-5 registers each shift. The person working backbar is responsible for making sure they aren't losing bags, and the team leader is responsible for making sure the concessionists are giving out the right bags. Candy is inventoried by pairing 2 registers together for each candy case. The candy is stocked to certain levels at the end of the night, and is verified(along with cups and bags) by the staff at the beginning of their shift. Their movie pass privelages are revoked if there register is off by more than a quarter of 1 percent, and the team leader loses their passes if the team accuracy is off by more than a quarter of 1 percent as well. It may sound confusing, but it isn't. A HORRIBLE weekly inventory would be around .10 over/short. Not much trust floating around when you have almost 200 staff.