Inventory of stock
What is a stocktaking?
In the broadest sense of the term, inventory is an act of identifying all the physical assets of a warehouse or business. Overall, it is an action that allows to make a general inventory for economic purposes, but not only!
The inventory of stocks concerns all types of products: finished products, goods, raw materials, etc… However, the inventory of stocks depends on your activity; for a business whose activity is centered on the purchase or resale of products, it concerns the products purchased, but not resold to the final consumer for example.
The inventory of stocks has several uses, such as calculating and observing the variations of stocks, to to better manage supplies, to organize the production of merchandise, to verify that no product is missing, deterioration, loss or theft, and to highlight certain management errors.
The management of its inventory is not negligible compared to the stock itself. Indeed, any imbalance (stockout, excess stock, etc.) in the quantity of products that are stored can take away productivity and the company’s competitiveness.
What are the major types of inventory/stock?
Several types of inventory exist, notably functional, here is a more or less exhaustive one:
4 functional
Cycle Stock: This is the inventory in a warehouse to meet typical demand over a long period of time.
Seasonal inventory: This is seasonal inventory for products with significant sales increases at specific times.
Salvage Stock: These are products that can be reused in part or in whole.
Dead stock: This is the inventory of obsolete goods, which cannot be reused and therefore must be removed from the warehouse.
Etc…
3 operational
Optimal inventory: The optimal inventory level is the inventory that offers us the highest profitability.
Zero stock: To serve on order, and therefore minimize warehouse inventory.
Physical inventory: the physical stock is the number of products that are available in the warehouse at a time T
Etc…
In what context to make its inventory, why manage its stock?
For economic and financial purposes, a company requires an annual balance sheet. The inventory is therefore essential.
The accounting inventory is a mandatory mandatory annual document for anycompany. It is to realize in general before December 31 of the current year.TheArticle L 123-12 of the French Commercial Code stipulates the obligation to “to check, at least once every twelve months, the existence and value of the assets and liabilities of the company’s assets and to draw up annual accounts at the end of the financial year”.
However, the Wiilog advises you to carry out an inventory more frequently and to optimize your inventory management. Indeed, it avoids losses and thefts,toanticipate possible errorsand tomprove visibility on operations,to valorize locations, to control human operations, and and towork on the same tool.
There are several notable advantages to permanent and intermittent inventories. The permanent inventory allows you to avoid stock-outs and to quickly update the stock. However, it requires a more complex information system and higher costs than intermittent inventory. This type of inventory is ideal for companies with large inventories and an inventory management culture.
For intermittent inventory, costs are lower but information is not widely available or accessible.
The methods
What are the main methods of inventory and stock management?
FIFO – First In First Out:
The first goods to leave the warehouse shelves will be the first goods to enter them. It allows a optimal stock rotation optimal and it is perfectly adapted to the storage of perishable products.
LIFO – Last In First Out:
The assets produced or purchased last, are the first to leave the inventory again, being either fully used, sold or thrown away.
FEFO – First Expired, First OutUseful for managing products with a pre-emption date, with a use-by date.
It is based on the principle that the products with the nearest expiration date are the first to be removed from the inventory. In other words, this method works similarly to FIFO except that it is based on the use-by date (BBD) to know which product in stock should be removed first.
ABC Management
Category A These are the products with a higher value of the inventory > requires greater vigilance to avoid stock-outs. More direct access to the shelves due to its low location.
Category B Product with a lower vigilance/control level,general, inventory is updated by lot, not by unit. Half height on the industrial shelf.
Category C: these are the items that have the least turnover. The control of this stock is simple. They usually occupy the highest areas of the shelves.
Etc.
How to make an inventory with Wiilog? The key to a permanent and optimized inventory
Your stocks are not up to date? They are not physically identified? Your operators are looking for a reference and your order preparations have a high error rate?
Wiilog solutions allow you to facilitate your inventory management and optimize your inventory counts. No more endless Excel spreadsheets , no more piles of post-it notes to manage and alert emergencies.
No matter what your inventory type and native operation is, Wiilog offers various functionalities: from the identification of containers, references and products to the provision of a powerful and personalized dashboard with receipts, storage and retrieval.
Find also our solutions for your traceability and delivery problems