Portion off the sections of your restaurant. For example, counting food in the entire restaurant can be overwhelming, so it's much easier to make accurate food and ingredient counts if you count individual sections of your store. Some individual areas might include the food preparation station, the walk-in cooler, dry-storage and condiment coolers.

Record the total beginning inventory as indicated by your food-delivery receipts. For instance, when your food inventory items are delivered, the delivery driver will give you a bill of lading that lists everything that was delivered. This is your beginning inventory.

Determine per item ingredient amounts. For instance, if your restaurant sells burgers, estimate the amount of ketchup and mustard that is added to each burger. Do this for all ingredients.

Determine your acceptable window of variance. For instance, some restaurants accept a 1 percent variance for ingredient items and a .25 percent variance (one quarter of 1 percent) for major food items. Try to keep your major food item variance to less than half of 1 percent. Try to keep your ingredient items' variance to less than 2 percent.

Conduct a nightly closing count of major food items. For instance, if your restaurant sells burgers, make a nightly count of burger patties, buns, bags of fries and any main side items.

Print off a nightly line item sales report from your register. The line item sales report will list how much of each food item you sold that day.

Compare the nightly closing count of major food items to the line item sales report. For instance, if your register sales indicate you sold 49 burgers, you should be 49 burgers short of your beginning inventory. If your inventory shows that you're 52 burgers short, you should determine if a customer made a return, if there was additional unexplained waste or if food items are mysteriously missing. Comparing your nightly closing count to your line item sales report will help you catch any problems before they become materially significant.

Conduct a quick count of major food items each morning and compare your morning count to the previous night's closing count. This is your daily beginning inventory.

Conduct a weekly inventory of all food and ingredient items. Compare the inventory counts of remaining food items to the register tape sales records. Compare the remaining amounts of ingredient items to the estimated amount used of per item ingredients.

Determine your average daily, weekly and monthly waste totals, and set goals for future performance. For instance, to determine your average daily waste, add together each day's total waste and divide by 7. To determine your average weekly waste, take inventory for at least one month, add together each week's total waste and divide by 4. Set increasingly lower goals. For instance, if your store shows a 2 percent waste for all food items, set a goal of 1.5 percent waste for the following week.