Moving stock between two kitchens, and who signs for it
When one kitchen in a hall lends stock to another, one number update is not enough. A transfer is three moments — sent, in transit, received — and the person who sent it must not be the one who signs it in. Why the van in the middle matters.
Kitchens in a hall borrow from each other. The taco stall runs low on limes on a Friday night and the bar has a case spare. The simple way to record that is one action: take ten off the bar, add ten to the tacos, done.
The simple way is wrong the moment the two counts do not line up, and between two busy kitchens they never quite do.
A transfer has a middle
Stock does not teleport. It leaves one shelf, spends a few minutes on a trolley or in someone’s arms, and arrives on another shelf — and sometimes eight of the ten arrive because two got used on the way. If the system books the whole move in one step, the receiving kitchen’s count is wrong from the instant it is written, and nobody can see where the two went because there was never a moment the transfer was “out”.
So a transfer is three states, not one. It is sent the moment the first kitchen lets it go; it is in transit until the second kitchen counts it in; and it is received for the quantity that actually turned up, which may not be the quantity that left. The gap between sent and received is a real thing that happened, and it belongs on the record rather than being averaged away.
The sender cannot sign for the arrival
The other half is who presses receive. If the same person can both send stock and sign it in at the far end, the control is gone — and between two kitchens of one company it is the easy way for a shortfall to be recorded as if it never happened. Receiving is a separate action, taken by the receiving kitchen, counting what is in front of them. It is the same reason a delivery from a supplier is checked in by the person who takes it, not the person who ordered it.
What to value it at
A transfer moves cost, not just units. Freeze the sending kitchen’s cost price onto each line at the moment it goes, so the transfer’s value cannot change when somebody edits a cost price next month. The receiving kitchen inherits real numbers, and the gross-profit figures on both sides stay honest.