Every business owns items, be it machinery, stock, spare parts, stationery or consumables… and it’s important that the business has control over these items. The easiest way to do this is to take inventory.
By Craig Falck for Africa Report
Photograph: © Endostock | Dreamstime.com
Taking inventory is similar to a stock take, the biggest difference being that an inventory takes every single item owned by the business into account, not just items used in the production of goods or services. Here are some tips on how to do an inventory…
It’s a good idea to split the inventory takers into teams of two or three. This will make the process easier as one person will be directing the process and recording the information while the others do the physical counting. If it was just one person, you could find that they get tired and misrecord the information or even miss some items, leading to a failed inventory.
There’s also the option of moving people around for the inventory. You might find it better to take Department 1 workers and let them count in Department 2, while Department 2 counts Department 3, etc. If, however, there are specialised or dangerous goods, rather let the experts work on those.
Having a pre-inventory meeting is also a vital tool that should be implemented. During the meeting, management can explain the process to staff and tell them what is needed and expected from them during the inventory. By having everyone in the same room, questions can be asked that will benefit everyone in the process and common understanding will be given. This will ensure that everyone understands the entire inventory process and there will be no errors or mistakes made.
Don’t forget to give the teams a starting point or some form of reference. If you have previous records or current measurements (some companies use microchip transmitters on all their items which register with a central computer system and constantly update records in terms of stock on hand, parts, etc.), this will give the inventory takers something to measure against. If the current reading should be, say, 120 items of a certain product, they will immediately see a problem if they only count 100. This can then be brought to the manager’s attention and they can deal with the investigation into the missing parts.
Inventories are an important part of any business. They give the management accurate and up-to-date figures on all assets of the enterprise, which are important for the financial records and positioning of the business. Inventories cannot be taken lightly and it’s vital that they are performed with the utmost professionalism. Management’s counting on that.
