Full-service restaurant count-variance review SOP - when the month doesn't balance, no adjusting entries first: blind recount by a second person, chase four document classes, probe three process leaks; what clears adjusts with paperwork attached, what doesn't hangs as unresolved, never force-balanced

You are an inventory management coach for a full-service restaurant. Produce a Monthly Count-Variance Review SOP for the backroom manager to execute whenever a count shows a variance. Three steps, each stating: what / how / pass standard / which step a failure feeds.

Threshold (before anything else):
- The subject is the book-to-floor variance: system stock versus physical count; variances over [Y] in value or over [Z]% of the category's value must run this procedure - smaller ones go to simple logging
- Nobody adjusts the books before the review completes - this is the first line of the SOP

Three steps, order fixed, no skipping:
1. Blind recount step:
- What: a second person who did not take the initial count recounts by item, without looking at the book figures
- Pass: recount matches the initial count - the variance is real, proceed to step 2
- Fail: the recount governs; a third count if needed, two matching takes the number - the variance was a miscount, correct the physical figure, log it, done; no document chase
2. Document chase step:
- What: inside the count window (from the last count to this one), chase four document classes - receipts, issue tickets, returns, write-offs - against the system posting line by line
- Pass: an unposted or misposted document found that explains the variance - the amounts reconcile
- Handling: adjust the books with that document number attached; "adjust first, backfill the paperwork later" always gets unwound and redone
- Fail (all four classes reconcile and the variance stands) proceed to step 3
3. Process-leak probe step:
- Probe three leaks: unit conversion (case/each/bottle, kilo/pound errors), walk-outs without tickets (kitchen grabbed stock at rush and never filed - ask the shift on duty, record the answer, do not interrogate the attitude), returns-to-storage never booked (leftover stock brought back and never entered)
- Pass: any leak confirms an explaining quantity
- Handling: what can be papered, gets papered and adjusted; walk-outs without tickets that cannot be reconstructed are logged honestly as "process-leak variance" with the shift's statement attached

Closing and escalation rules (fixed):
- Anything still unexplained after all three steps hangs in the "unresolved" account - never force-balanced; unresolved items get their own section in the monthly report
- The same item varying the same direction two months running escalates automatically into a special review (re-run step 2 with the window widened), triggered by no one's initiative
- One archive line per review: item / variance / classification (miscount / document / process leak / unresolved) / attached document numbers - this monthly summary sheet is the anti-recurrence evidence

Constraints:
- No assigning responsibility to individuals - this SOP examines books and process; people problems go through management channels, and the moment the two mix, the data starts lying
- No spreading one variance across multiple items to level the books - a variance lives in the item it was found in
- "Probably last count was wrong" is not an accepted explanation for this month's variance - a wrong last count belongs to the last review
- Reviews run after close of business, never blocking issues to the floor; whatever cannot be traced hangs as unresolved, honestly - "absorb the variance" is not an action that exists in this SOP

Why it is written this way

Force-balancing is the number-one enemy of variance management: the instant the books are trued up, every missing ticket and unbooked leak behind the variance receives amnesty - next month the same difference arrives, now with a precedent to cite. The first line of the SOP ("no adjustments before the review completes") locks adjustment authority at the end of the pipeline, and "every adjustment carries a document number" keeps it there - an adjustment with no paperwork is visible at a glance in the monthly report.

The blind recount leads because it is the cheap filter: a solid share of reported variances are miscounts, skipped lines, misread units, and one recount by a second person clears them. Skip it and chase documents, and you burn an afternoon tracing a variance that never existed. "Without looking at the book figures" is the soul of the step - count with the answer in view and the difference magically shrinks.

The three process leaks are particular to a full-service kitchen: case-each-bottle conversion errors (receipts by the case, issues by the bottle), rush-hour walk-outs without tickets, and unbooked returns to storage - together they cover most of "every document reconciles and the count still won't". "Ask the shift, record the answer, don't interrogate the attitude" fixes the step's character: it hunts quantity, not people - interrogate once, and the shift learns to answer "never took it" forever after.

The unresolved account and the automatic escalation give the SOP its time dimension: one month's unexplained variance is not a loss, it is a signal - two months in the same direction means a leak that leaks continuously. Escalation fires by rule, not initiative, because "open a special review" lives at the bottom of everyone's to-do list. And "absorbing a variance is not an action that exists in this SOP" is written for everyone planning to quietly use it up next month.

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