Essential Steps for Effective Inventory Stocktaking
Let’s face it — stocktakes suck. They’re an interruption to the business, they need hard work and no one enjoys them. But you have to get them done, maybe every six months or once a year. In order to make the process a little less tedious, here are three top tips from Greg Murphy: Unleashed Founder, current Partner Manager and overall stocktaking expert.
1. Get ready in advance – then stop
One of the first things I found with stocktakes is that you need to prepare: sometimes up to a month in advance. The whole company needs to know what is happening, who is involved and what they are doing as a part of the process.
You’ll also want to ensure that all your latest purchases are receipted and everything that has gone out is sold. Once that’s done, stop. Because you need that stock to be still to get an accurate count. If you still have stock coming in and out of your warehouse, there’s no chance of an accurate count.
2. Count warehouse to sheet
Counting stock manually is not fun: it’s a messy, dirty job. But it’s important to count from warehouse to sheet and not the other way round. Why? Because there could be stuff in the warehouse that you didn’t know existed. If you’re just counting off a piece of paper, you won’t take it into account.
Make sure your counters are checking each other’s numbers, to avoid any mistakes.
3. Fix those errors
Your stocktake isn’t over the moment you have a figure. Importing your new data is no fun either, but it’s got to be done accurately. Because chances are, you’ll have some reconciling to do.
People often think that finding stock is a good thing. But in reality, it means someone has made a mistake. It’s really important that your stocktaking process includes taking the time to investigate how these mistakes occurred, so you can ensure they don’t happen again.
You should also be rechecking your figures — maybe even twice — to ensure that before you hit that big red button to free up your stock, you have a 100% accurate figure.
Finally, don’t shy away from stocktakes. They are absolutely crucial, giving you the accuracy your business needs. And the longer you leave it until the next one, the harder it will be.
Find out more about stocktaking.
What's next
- Implementation
- Ground Training
- Customers
- Inventory
- 2:39 Batch/Serial: Stock Adjustment & Stock Take
- 1:30 Introduction to Batch Tracking
- 1:59 Markup Price Update
- 1:32 Introduction to Serial Number Tracking
- 1:22 Supplier Price Books
- 1:26 Batch Purchase Order & Supplier Return
- 1:29 Serial Purchase Order & Supplier Return
- 2:14 Stock Count
- 1:20 Serial: Sales Order & Credit
- 1:18 Batch Tracking Sales Order & Credit
- 1:44 Stock on Hand vs Available Quantity
- 1:52 Obsoleting Products
- 1:41 Product Measurements
- 2:21 List sellable products
- 3:23 Navigate Unleashed like a Pro
- Production
- Purchasing
- Sales
- 2:16 Quantity Discounts
- 1:15 Accept Sales Quote & Create Order
- 1:17 Batch Complete
- 1:03 Create a Sales Order
- 1:17 Sales Order: Managing Invoices
- 1:11 Sales Order: Managing Shipments
- 1:07 Sales Order Credit
- 1:21 Free Credit
- 1:30 Credit Reasons
- 1:47 Managing your Sales Team
- 2:06 Enhanced reporting with customised sales groups
- 1:55 Sales module: Overview
- 1:34 Using the View Shipment Page
- Setup
- Suppliers
- Take Off
- Integration
- 3:06 Seamless Shipping with Advanced Shipping
- 1:11 Shopify: Locate missing order
- 1:28 Magento: Missing Invoices
- 2:20 Magento: Product Type
- 2:22 Xero: Reconcile Transactions
- 1:52 Integrating Shopify – Shopify as Master
- 1:48 Integrating Shopify – Unleashed as Master
- 2:19 Managing Products with Shopify
- 2:05 Integrating with Amazon
- 2:21 Best practices for your Xero integration
- 2:39 Enable credit limits
- 2:24 Setting up Xero Tracking Categories in Unleashed
- Inventory
- 1:42 Batch Tracking: Update Batch Numbers
- 1:54 Importing Files
- 1:02 Product Attributes Invoices
- 1:44 Product Attributes Setup
- 1:52 Receipting Purchase Order with Barcoded Product
- 1:26 Warehouse Transfers
- 0:50 Batch Tracking: Update batch number expiry date
- 2:33 Creating multi layered Bills of Materials with Sub Assembly
- 3:14 How to do a batch recall in Unleashed
- 4:56 Use disassembly to break down bulk products into small units of measure
- 3:20 Manage consignment inventory
- Reporting
- Sales Orders
- 1:38 Ship From Multiple Warehouses
- 1:30 Backordering: Fulfilling Sales Order Via Purchase Order
- 1:43 Backordering: Split Shipments
- 2:30 How to manage dropshipping orders in Unleashed
- 4:08 View and manage your sales orders in Unleashed
- 3:20 How to create Commercial Invoices
- 4:09 Set up pricing hierarchy in Unleashed
- Settings
- 1:43 Multiple Images
- 1:30 Payment Terms
- 1:31 Roles and Role Permissions
- 3:51 How to set up 2-Step Authentication (2SA)
- 2:12 Complete Transparency with Email Logs
- 2:17 Creating and printing customised product labels
- 1:19 Set a default delivery method
- 2:43 Printing product labels
- 2:26 Add Supplier Quantity Price Breaks
- 3:49 How to set up email templates and automated emails
- B2B Store
- 1:40 Allow guests to access to your B2B Store
- 2:10 B2B Freight
- 2:29 Managing your B2B orders
- 2:05 Get your customer records ready for your B2B store
- 2:58 Update product details for your B2B store
- 1:46 Setting up multi currency sales on your B2B store
- 1:58 Setting up product categories in the B2B store
- 1:53 Acting as a customer in the B2B eCommerce portal
- 2:40 Creating catalogues for your B2B store
- 1:59 Grant multiple admin access on your B2B store
- 1:34 Help B2B customers transact efficiently with Standing Orders
- 1:18 Send personalised B2B Emails
- 1:26 Customise your B2B eCommerce Store with content pages
- 2:35 Create custom homepage on your B2B Store
- 1:50 Place bulk orders on the B2B Store
- 4:54 Set up payments for your B2B Store
- 5:00 How to set up multiple contacts in your B2B Store
- 1:17 B2B Standing Orders
- Business Intelligence
- Integration
- In Orbit
- Inventory Management
- 2:02 Essential Steps for Effective Inventory Stocktaking
- 1:57 Advantages of perpetual inventory systems
- 1:44 Leaving your spreadsheets
- 1:27 Facing Software Change
- 2:23 Inventory Management Systems – What to look for
- 1:04 Tips to get your business ready for moving to an inventory management system
- 1:28 Benefits of integrating with other ecommerce softwares
- 2:20 The Rise of the Component Solution
- 3:22 Tips to help you match your product supply to customer demand
- 1:49 Inventory Management vs Warehouse Management
- 1:56 The importance of customer service
- 1:42 Make the most of an inventory management system with training
- Finance Flavour
- Business Bites
- Partners
- Inventory Management
- Access