There are many good reasons for performing regular stocktakes and it goes without saying that your business will be less profitable if you are not maintaining accurate and up to date stock records.
7 Good Reasons for Regular Stocktaking
- Stocktaking provides you with business intelligence that can help you improve and optimise your stock management processes and procedures in key areas such as booking-in stock deliveries, transferring stock from location to location, processing sales, returning stock to suppliers and so on.
- Stocktaking allows you to monitor stock shrinkage, identify security vulnerabilities, spot theft hot spots and closely monitor high value items.
- Stock from web and retail sale returns is often overlooked or processed incorrectly resulting in ongoing stock inaccuracies. Regular stocktakes will quickly flush out problems with your returns processing.
- Your business-critical processes and systems such as forecasting, ordering, stock replenishment and stock distribution all need up to date and accurate stock figures. If your stock levels are inaccurate you will be prone to over/under ordering, over or under stocking at your stores and to selling stock on-line that you do not have. This can adversely impact business performance and customer service.
- Stocktaking will enable you to identify weaknesses in your stock delivery, booking-in and distribution processes. These are common areas where stock is incorrectly processed and recording mistakes are made.
- Regular stock counts throughout the year will help reduce the drift that can arise between what your retail management system and accounts say your stock valuation should be. Producing your year-end accounts and having them signed off by your accountant will be a less stressful experience.
- Knowing your stock levels are correct ensures that you can plan with confidence, maximise your profits, provide better customer service and ultimately strengthen your competitive position in the market place.
Assuming that you are a convert of stocktakes, you will want to ensure that your stock counting process uses your valuable resources in the most efficient way and that the stocktake results are accurate and reliable. Preparation, planning, management, discipline and using the best tools for the job all play a key part in getting the optimum results.
Get in touch with one of our team and we’ll be happy to discuss how we can help get you setup with a fully managed stock taking system.