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Getting started: your first week with ShelfCount

You don’t have to set up everything at once. This is the order that works best: locations first, then items, then your team, then your first count. Most cafés are counting inventory by the end of week one.

Day 1: what you start with

When you create your account, ShelfCount starts your 14-day free trial and sets up a starter kit for you: the common kitchen units (grams, ounces, pounds, milliliters, fluid ounces, gallons, cases, bottles, bags, and more) and a handful of starter categories (Dairy, Dry Goods, Produce, Beverage, Packaging). You can rename, add, or remove categories any time from the Categories page.

Step 1: add your storage locations

A location is anywhere you physically store product: walk-in, dry storage, bar, front-of-house fridge, freezer. Go to Locations and add each place you’d stand in while counting. Counts are done one location at a time, so locations should match how you actually walk the building.

Step 2: add your inventory items

Go to Inventory Items and add the products you buy. For each item you’ll set:

  • What you buy it as — the purchase unit (a case, a bag, a gallon) and what it costs.
  • What you count it as — the unit you’ll use on the shelf (bottles, bags, each).
  • Pack size — how the purchase unit breaks down, like 1 case = 12 bottles of 750 mL.

Getting units right is the foundation for everything else — costing, counting, and ordering. See Items, units, pack sizes, and costs for a plain-language walkthrough.

Tip: start with your 30–50 highest-spend items (dairy, proteins, coffee, packaging). You can add the long tail later — you don’t need every single item to get value from your first count.

Step 3: add your team

An admin can add team members from Settings. You create each person with a name, email, a temporary password, and a role; they’re asked to set their own password the first time they sign in. Roles keep things safe: staff can count inventory and scan receipts but never see costs, managers run purchasing and reports, and admins also manage the team. Details in Your team and roles.

Step 4: run your first count

Go to Counts and start a count for one location. Walk the shelf, enter what you see, and submit. A few things to know:

  • Leaving an item blank means “skip it” — only enter 0 if the shelf is actually empty.
  • Counts save as you go, so you can put your phone down and come back. Unfinished drafts expire after 24 hours.
  • Once submitted, a count is locked (managers can void a bad one).

The full guide is in Counting inventory.

After week one

Once counting feels routine, layer in the rest at your own pace: