Warehouse inventory: how to do it correctly

Warehouse inventory is a comparison of what is listed with what is actually on the shelves. Without it, a business does not know how much goods it actually has: mismatches, shortages and “dead” positions accumulate, which freeze money. In Tashkent and throughout Uzbekistan, many still count balances on paper statements once a year, stopping work on weekends. This can be done easier and more accurately. Below we will look at why inventory is needed, how often to do it, how to do everything correctly step by step, and how Taska removes the pain from this process.

Why do you need a warehouse inventory?

Over time, any warehouse “diverges” from accounting, even if everyone works honestly: the goods were sorted upon receipt, sold without being written off, broken, or the wrong item written off. Inventory catches these discrepancies and returns accuracy to accounting. Without regular reconciliation, you don’t see the real picture: the seller promises the client something that is not there, the buyer orders what is already there, and shortages and theft emerge too late. A separate pain is illiquid goods: goods that do not move for months and quietly eat up working capital. The inventory shows it too. In essence, this is not a formality for show, but a tool for controlling money: until the balances in the system coincide with reality, you can neither plan purchases nor calculate profits on their basis.

How to take inventory step by step

In order for the inventory to produce results and not turn into chaos, it is carried out in a clear order. The basic script looks like this:

• Preparation: record accounting balances at the beginning and decide which warehouses and product groups you are counting.
• Recount: the team physically counts the goods at storage locations, more conveniently with a barcode scanner, so as not to confuse the positions.
• Reconciliation with accounting: actual quantities are compared with what is listed in the system - surpluses and shortages are identified.
• Analysis of discrepancies: for each deviation, a reason is sought - misgrading, damage, unaccounted receipt, sales error.
• Registration: an inventory act is generated, balances in the system are adjusted upon the fact, and the culpable discrepancies are recorded.
• Conclusions: repeated shortages are a reason to change the process of acceptance, storage or access to the warehouse.

Why is manual inventory bad?

Classic inventory with paper records is long, expensive and inaccurate. In order to count everything “in the moment,” the warehouse and store are usually shut down, losing weekend revenue. Discrepancies are counted manually, combining papers with uploading from Excel - in large warehouses this means hours of work and almost guaranteed errors. While the recount is in progress, new sales and income are either frozen or taken into account retroactively, and the result still “floats”. It’s impossible to really track batches and expiration dates on paper, so expired and illiquid items are discovered by chance. As a result, companies take inventory rarely and reluctantly, which means they spend most of the year working with inventory that cannot be trusted.

How Taska makes inventory easier

In Taska, inventory is a document, not a stack of statements. You create an inventory for a warehouse or a group of goods, enter actual quantities (including with a scanner), and the system itself calculates the discrepancies - where there is a surplus, where there is a shortage - and generates a report. Adjustment of balances based on the results is done in one step, the history is saved, and accounting by batches and expiration dates helps to immediately see expired and illiquid items. Since the warehouse is connected to sales in one system, there is no need to completely stop work: accounting remains reliable, and reconciliation is faster and without paper chaos. We implement it on a turn-key basis: we set up warehouses, items and the inventory process for your business, transfer current balances and train the team. We launch the working kernel in 14 days, calculations are in sums (UZS), the interface and support are in Russian.

Let's take inventory without pain

Leave a request for a free consultation - we will analyze your warehouse and product range, show you a demo inventory document with automatic calculation of discrepancies and a report, and tell you how to carry out reconciliation regularly without stopping sales. You choose: own the system for a one-time payment or work on a subscription basis.