Auditing inventory is not the most exciting part of an online retailer’s life, but it is one of the most important. There is no doubt about the fact that accurate inventory is a cornerstone of the sales business. While moving hundreds and thousands of products every week, it is no wonder that one might fall into one of the many pitfalls that come with managing inventory. Failure to keep track of your stock accurately can lead to potentially embarrassing situations for your business and may also lead to much graver problems. In this post, we will tell you exactly why it is so important for you to do a stock count audit on a weekly basis and ensure that your warehouse is running like a well-oiled machine.
Why should you audit your stock
on a weekly basis?
1. Because it prevents items from going out-of-stock
The warehouse is a very busy place with complex mechanisms. It is usually delicately balanced between the extreme ends of supply and demand. The dominance of either end leads to a very unhealthy warehouse. Nobody wants to admit to their customers that the item they want to purchase is out-of-stock. Not only is this a mark of unprofessionalism, but it is also one sale lost. This is why the statistics of the warehouse should always be up-to-date and refreshed regularly.
2. Because it prevents overstocking
Then there is the other extreme – overstocking. Every product in storage is an expense, because you are spending a certain amount of money towards its storage. Ideally, products must keep moving through the warehouse, replaced by new ones. Being lethargic towards your weekly stock figures can lead to overstocking of products. One must especially keep an eye on the slow moving products and their shelf life.
3. Because it benefits your balance sheet
Everything you buy and sell has an asset value. It will appear on your balance sheet as a tangible profit or loss. If you are making a balance sheet on a weekly basis, to check the position of your investments on the go, it makes sense that you parallelly make a stock audit. Maintaining your inventory audit will thus lead to up to date accounting.
4. Because it minimises theft
You don’t want to audit your stock after three months only to realize that a few items are missing/stolen. These instances happen all the time in warehouses, and the most efficient way to minimize them, apart from a few handy security cameras, is regular stock audit.
5. Because it gives you a unique sales perspective
If you do have a great month, your balance sheets will reflect it. What they won’t reflect is the type of items sold and their popularity. Doing a weekly stock audit means that you will have information handy on which of your products are hitting popularity in the market in real time. This is a very agile way of doing business, which means that you can easily take a decision to push or pull products in the market for short periods of time based on your stock analysis, making the most of a sales boom.
6. Because it will help you on your yearly audit
Year-end audits tend to be painstaking procedures and the one thing that can make them simpler is your weekly stock audit reports. Now, instead of trying hard to tally SKU codes with sales reports, all you will need to do is collate your up-to-date weekly audit reports and tie them up with the yearly sales report. It is simple data confirmation as opposed to the more time consuming data entry.
For any doubts or queries, get in touch with Browntape. We are India’s leading multi-channel inventory management solution providers, and we are always happy to help!
