Stocktake is a right pain for any business. But unfortunately it is a reality as well as a necessity of running a business. If you work in retail, in particular, you’ll need to do a stocktake a minimum of once a year. A lot of businesses employ stocktake teams to do this for them, but this isn’t always the best approach.
These teams often get in the way, take forever and prevent you from having a normal working day. There are ways that you can avoid having to bring in a stocktake team that still allow you to do a stocktake. Here are some of the best policies you can adopt to avoid having to use a stocktake team.
Order Properly
To start with you need to make sure you do your orders properly. It’s no good over ordering stock because then you’ll lose track of what you’ve got. But at the same time under ordering is bad because you’ll be losing sales. You need to keep on top of your ordering to make sure your stock levels remain at a manageable level. If you start to lose control of your stock levels, you’ll need to get the stocktake team in to help you out, and that’s not what you want. Make sure you do the ordering yourself. Or at least get a trustworthy and experienced member of staff to do it for you.
Train Staff
It’s important to train up your staff so they’re aware of exactly what the need to do in their roles. Explain to them the importance of your stock and materials, and how they need to make sure they keep on top of it. It’s vital that staff members know and understand the importance of inventory. They need to be aware of what stock is coming in and what is going out. They need to try to make a note of whatever stock they use over the course of a day. If you have a warehouse full of stock you need to make sure it’s efficient and ensure that stock that’s needed is put out.
Inventory Everything
One of the best ways to keep a record of your stock and materials is to make sure you inventory everything. Now this can be a massive pain in the proverbial and is often time-consuming and stressful. This is why we have stocktake teams to begin with. But, there are ways in which you can inventory your stock in a stress-free way. By using the IESA Inventory Management system you can make sure you keep on top of everything. The system works out and records data based on ordering patterns, usage and maximum stock level. There are many other layers to the system as well. But if you want to come up with an efficient and precise way to inventory your stock and business assets this is the best approach.
Keep Database of Stock and Sales
As a backup plan, for your own edification, you could think about keeping your own record of stock and sales. Create a database on your computer and make sure you record all the sales for the day as well as each time you order. You’ll help yourself identify sales trends within the business, and you’ll improve your ordering. It also means you’ll have a backup plan in case your IT software crashes. Keeping your own database as well is sensible management and means you can carry out your own stocktake if needs be.
