Usage Summary - Frequently Asked Questions

Inventory Count Issues

Question: Why are my inventory amounts incorrect?

Reason	Solution
The item was counted using the wrong unit of measure.	This is usually caused when an inventory item's purchasing unit of measure was entered incorrectly. The reporting unit of measure may also have been recently changed. Adjusting the inventory count using the proper unit of measure will correct the count amount.
A prep contains the incorrect quantity of an ingredient.	Open the I.R.M. to find out which preps the item is included in. Correct the quantity of the item within the prep recipe and re-enable/re-summarize the inventory count sheet. Re-enable the inventory by clicking "Delete" and then selecting "No".
Counts are incorrect.	99% of the time the inventory counts are incorrect. Double check counts before anything else.
Key Items vs. All Items	If using a key item inventory, all other items will be automatically calculated by Optimum Control and if the amounts for some reason have gone below 0 (tied to a recipe with no purchases or proper inventory) then the recipe import could keep extracting below 0. Make sure to do an all item inventory to correct (set to 0 if necessary).

Question: Why are my actual and ideal usage matching for an item but there's still a variance in value?

Reason	Solution
This is because the cost has been updated for an item without entering a purchase.	Click File -> Preferences -> Settings -> Inventory to change the inventory valuation to "Last Cost". Adjust the inventory count by entering the same count amount and the value will be corrected to reflect the current case cost for the inventory item in question.

Question: Why is my inventory value for an item inaccurate?

Reason

Solution

The First-In-First-Out (FIFO) function is calculating incorrectly.

Click Settings -> Preferences -> Inventory and select "Last Cost". Revaluing the inventory is not a problem, as you can adjust the inventory (even to the same counted amount) and it will be recalculated based on the current case size's cost.

For invoices, you may have to re-save the ones that include the item in question. You can determine which invoices the item has been included on by running an item activity report.

Sales Issues

Question: Why is it that when I run the usage summary report that my total amounts do not match my POS (Point of Sale) system?

Reason	Solution
This is because these are the figures calculated for each category in the Daily Sales Summary window for processed items only.	Click "Sales" to double check the sales category amount that was brought in from the POS system during the sales mix import. This sales category can be manually changed from the "Daily Sales Summary" window which can be entered by double-clicking on a date in the "Sales Pick" window.

Question: Why doesn't the report display any ideal usage amounts?

Reason	Solution
There weren't any sales processed during the reporting period.	Have you saved your sales mix for the reporting period? Or you may have saved the sales mix on a date outside the date range of the reporting period. Double check the dates and if incorrect, click on the Sales Mix entry in question to highlight it and right click on it to change the date.

Ideal Usage Issues

Question: Why is my ideal cost of sales is higher than what's displayed in my POS?

Reason	Solution
The sales mix entries are duplicated.	Click on the "Sales Mix" window and see if you have saved your sales mix twice. Go to the sales mix pick window, highlight the duplicate sales mix and click "Delete".
You have imported regular days of sales and then perhaps run one of the sales mix reports from your POS for half a month or so.	Open each sales mix and see if there is one of the sales mixes that is extremely high in number.

Question: Why is my ideal usage too low for one or more items?

Reason

Solution

There are pending sales to reconcile.

If there are menu products in pending sales when you run the "Usage Summary" report, sales will not be processed for the items in pending sales and the ideal usage numbers will be incorrect.

The reason for this is that pending sales are suspended until they are linked to a product in Optimum Control so that the proper items can be removed from inventory to account for their sales.

Product recipes containing this item have been ignored.

If menu products have been ignored in the "Sales" window, no sales will be processed for the items included in those recipes. To apply the sales for ignored products to a sales mix, click Sales -> Ignored POS ID to uncheck any products that shouldn't be ignored.

Purchasing Issues

Question: Why are my inventory amounts imprecise?

Reason	Solution
The item was purchased using the wrong unit of measure.	Resaving the invoice after checking that the correct unit of measure was used will correct the period purchase for this item.

Question: Why are there uneven numbers in my Period Purchases?

Reason	Solution
Multiple case sizes have been purchased if the amount ends with a fraction.	Double check that all purchases have been entered into Optimum Control for the reporting period. Double-click the period purchase amount to view a purchase detail report that indicates all the different case sizes that the item has been purchased by.

Actual Usage Issues

Question: Why are there negative actual usage numbers in my usage summary?

Reason	Solution
A count has been entered incorrectly.	Adjust the inventory count for the item(s) in question.
A purchase has been missed.	Enter the missing invoice and regenerate the usage summary.
The item wasn't included in the inventory count sheets.	This can happen when you have chosen to only count key items for your inventory. Optimum Control takes whatever amount it has been tracking as the proper count for the non-key items and until you set the closing inventory amounts for the non-key items they may be incorrect.

*IMPORTANT: If you are running only key items in your counts, then ONLY key items should be run in the usage summary report. When you do a full count, then run usage summary with all items.