Control your stock to increase your profits

All efficient businesses control their stock. Poorstockcontrol results in poor cashflow and poor profitability – so it is essential that attention is paid to what is a critical element of any successful business.

There are software packages that can help with stock control issues including our own Smartstock – designed to make life simpler and more efficient, linking the stock control with accounts.

But below are five vital processes you should have in place to take control of your stock.

Step 1 – Mix up your stock counts.

Stock takes should serve two purposes in your business. Firstly, to give you a total confirmation of your stock through complete verification on an annual or monthly basis and secondly to assess the strength of your warehouse controls through frequent partial counts.

Step 2 – Keep your counters in the dark.

Consider whether your counters should be given the expected quantities when doing a stock count. Research shows that confirmation bias (and quite frankly a bit of laziness) can jeopardise the accuracy of a count if your team know what to expect.

Step 3 – Match your receipts against your orders.

Many businesses implement great procurement authorisation procedures but then accept deliveries through the door without matching the receipt against what was actually ordered.

At best, this wastes time chasing up suppliers and credits but at worse you can end up receiving and paying for stock you never actually ordered. Contact us to find out more about the importance of receipt matching and how best to implement a procedure to make sure you never receive unwanted stock again.

Step 4 – Become confident in your stock levels.

Controlling stock levels effectively means having total confidence in what you have on hand and what your stock levels will look like in the future.

Overstocking leads to stock obsolescence and wastage whilst under-stocking can result in dissatisfied customers and lost sales.

Step 5 – Integrate stock through to the back office.

Perhaps the single biggest step to effective stock control is to integrate your warehouse with the back office.

There are real benefits in true integration with your accounts package from updating stock receipts in real time to posting stock count adjustments as soon as they are identified.

For more information about software to manage and control your stock, contact Kamarin Computers on 01733 297100 or visit www.kamarin.co.uk