Understanding and Effective Tips for Managing Stock Takes

What exactly is meant by inventory taking? Why is it especially important for those in the retail industry, to ensure that inventory is recorded cleanly and accurately? Why management inventory taking is that important? What are the benefits?

To answer this question, it is important to first understand its meaning and importance inventory taking.

Definition Inventory taking

inventory taking is a series of activities to calculate the level of inventory of goods that are still stored in the warehouse to be marketed later. This includes a wide range of activities, from counting item quantities to conducting on-site inspections to organizing to facilitate operations when certain products are needed.

Understanding of inventory taking above allows business actors to ensure the smooth running of all business processes, especially those related to the delivery of the products offered.

The above activities can be subdivided to ensure that all smooth activities are maintained. For example, determining the location of products in the warehouse or estimating which products go in and out most often and when they should be stored. Removing from storage makes it easier for employees to delete them.

The person responsible for stock taking is the company's management who is not an internal company inventory recorder.

Reason for Doing Inventory taking

Activity inventory taking carried out to ensure and know accurately the inventory of goods in the financial records and goods in the warehouse, regardless of whether the amount is the same or different.

If you find more items than listed in the stockrecording, you can double check whether it is an unrecorded transaction or just a recording error issue.

If there is a shortage of goods, usually it can be done in two ways. That is making a product shortage reconciliation journal.

Companies can also direct inventory clerks to replace defective items. This activity can also be performed for accounts such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Other Assets.

Steps in Doing Inventory taking

You can't be careless when doing it inventory taking. Considering that this activity is very important for the smooth running of business operations to day-to-day operations, then inventory taking must also be applied correctly.

Regular and accurate stock taking management requires several steps, namely:

Early stage

The first stage inventory taking is to tell warehouse workers to organize products and classify them according to categories set by the company. In addition, you should also have labels or stickers to separate the items that are counted during inventory.

In addition, warehouse workers are usually required to attach a barcode to facilitate calculations.

Preparation phase

Preparation inventory taking is a critical step for the success of this activity. Preparatory work begins with directing employees to their respective tasks, and warehouse employees are given the task of inputting product variations the day before inventory, determining the time until closing time increases. This means that there should be no product mutations that need to be added between the end of business and the end of stock.

Stage Inventory taking

This core phase consists of several steps. Here are the steps to do inventory taking:

1. Make sure all commodity transactions are entered into the system before printing them and sharing them only with the company's accounting staff.
2. Stock taking is checked and collected by category, and then tagged and stickers are attached to the product being inspected.
3. Send inventory results for each category to entry team so that the data can be transferred to Microsoft Excel for comparison of inventory results and inventory in the system.
4. If there is a discrepancy between the two, please check again whether there is a miscalculation or a discrepancy in the amount.

Completion Stage

After all the steps inventory taking carried out, the results of this activity submitted to the section Accounting for the quantity adjustment process in the system. In addition, companies are required to keep inventory records as a sign of completion inventory taking.

Tips for managing stock taking

To be more effective in carrying out stock taking in business, consider and apply these tips:

Pay attention to the Warehouse Arrangement

It turns out that the arrangement of product stocks in the warehouse has an effect on the effectiveness of stock taking. The warehouse here is not only in the form of a room, but anything that is used to store products, including storage racks for small and medium businesses.

A neat arrangement of the warehouse will make the stock taking process easier because it will be easier for you to find similar items. Conversely, stock taking will take a long time if the warehouse arrangement is not good.

Form a Team for Stock Take

Furthermore, to make stock taking easier to do, you can create a special team to do stock taking. You can create a team of at least two or more people, depending on the scale of your business and the amount of inventory your business has.

Use the Stock Management Application

There are so many now digital platform application-based that facilitates many business activities, one of which is managing stock with stock taking. You can use apps or programs like Journal.id,MokaPOS,Kledo,WarehouseAda, and much more.

Create a Routine Stock Take Schedule

The next tip is to make a regular schedule for stock taking. You can determine the stock taking schedule according to your business needs. You can make it once every two weeks, once a month, or once every three months

Use Item Code

When you have many types of goods, then you spend more time on stock taking. Using a code for each type of item will make it easier for you to do stock taking for each type of item.

Those are 5 tips for managing effective stock taking for those of you who just want to apply it to your business. Apart from stock taking, learn other tips in manage business inventory You. Good luck!