Do you manage a retail business? If so, one of the challenges that you face is keeping your stock under control! All retailers know the importance of keeping up-to-date stock in their climate controlled storage units. Food retailers that can only sell fresh food might need a steady supply of ice from a wholesale ice supplier to help keep their products fresh. Otherwise, a lot of sick and angry customers will stop buying from them!
Do you want to make sure that your company is running a slick stock control system? If so, here are some handy hints and tips to help keep you on the right track!
Make sure you place official purchase orders with suppliers
One of the biggest issues that companies face is when workers order stuff by unofficial means. In other words, they don’t send official purchase orders to suppliers.
When that happens, procurement departments have no knowledge of the order process. They can’t assign the order to a specific budget or cost code. Accounts departments will refuse to pay the invoice. That’s because no-one has signed off the order within your organization.
Suppliers can then freeze your account with them. That means they bar your firm from ordering in future until the outstanding invoice gets paid. As you can see, a simple oversight turns into a nightmare situation!
It is important that you set up a strict ordering system within your company. IESA recommends having just one person to sign off orders. That way, they can get checked with relevant departments before they get placed with suppliers.
Deal with received purchase orders
Received an official purchase order from one of your customers? Make sure they get entered into your system.
On the other side of the coin, some firms face an ongoing battle to ensure workers process customer’s purchase orders. In a large firm, they can get entered onto the wrong account, or even the wrong cost code.
Can you imagine sending out $500,000 worth of stock to the wrong customer? It’s something that doesn’t bear thinking about!
Your company should have a system in place where purchase orders get checked at various stages. That way, you can tell your customer what is happening with their order. And you know who in your organization is dealing with that order.
Don’t forget about written-off stock
Does your company sponsor charity events? Maybe some of your stock got damaged for whatever reason?
If you have got stock you can’t sell, you need to remove it from your stock control system. Many systems offer the ability to make such adjustments. That way, you know just how much stock you’ve got and where it is. And for any missing stock, you can still account for it.
Double-check your stock
Most stock control systems work well for companies. But they can only do a good job if you input good data into them first! Ever heard of the term “operator error” before? That term applies to stock control, as it’s not uncommon for data entry mistakes to occur!
Do manual spot checks of stock, and make sure they tally up with what’s in your stock control system. Good luck!
