How exactly does stocktaking help your business? How often does your business conduct stocktaking and is it done often enough? Let’s take a look at the benefits of stocktaking below.
Regular stocktaking may just be the answer to your business’s trials and tribulations. Managing your stock effectively is key to your business’s growth and success.
You shouldn’t be surprised when you start enjoying certain benefits after implementing proper stocktaking measures.
Stocktaking carries a lot more weight than you think. Here are the 3 most important benefits of stocktaking for your business enterprise.
1). Stocktaking Helps You to Know Exactly How Much Profit or Loss You Are Making
Profit is the main goal of running a business. In this era of ever-growing business expenses and operations costs, running a successful business greatly relies on various factors such as keeping tabs on gross profits and losses.
Knowing how much you are making from your business is the only way to gauge its performance. That is where data management software comes into the picture to help with your stocktaking.
However, it is regular stocktaking that will enable you to always have key metrics on hand such as how much stock you have and what needs to be replenished as soon as possible.
As more and more businesses extend their hours of operation and employ more people to meet the demands of consumers, stocktaking plays a significant role in keeping many enterprises afloat.
No business is too small or too huge for stocktaking. Unfortunately, some small and medium business enterprises are not so keen on this crucial activity.
Businesses that don’t perform regular stock checks should not be surprised when their profits continue to dip every year.
Stocktaking can give you real-time figures on profits coming in from certain products. Stocktaking also helps you to set the correct selling prices for maximum profits.
Fast-moving products can have lower prices that encourage consumers to buy, while slow-moving goods can have slightly higher selling prices that guarantee profits in the long run.
2). Stocktaking Helps You to Safeguard Your Business Against Theft and Fraud
One major benefit of stocktaking is that it helps you to catch discrepancies in your stock. Discrepancies such as missing items can be signs that there is some theft or fraud taking place in your business.
Regular stocktaking allows you to monitor your staff so that anyone stealing from you will get caught in no time.
Your stock is your source of revenue and any malicious activity that negatively affects it can seriously harm your business.
This is more true for large businesses such as retail stores where theft by employees and customers is rampant. Some of the reasons why you may experience a shortage of stock are:
- Theft or fraud
- Undercharging at Points of Sale
- Short deliveries
- Stock wastage
All these situations can be avoided by implement stricter inventory processing and security measures.
3). Do a Comparative Analysis on Stock Levels and Sales
Modern stocktaking tools and software have made it easier to collect and process data on stock and inventory. You can use the data you collect from stocktaking to do a comparison of stock levels and sales.
You can use this information to identify instances of over-stocking or surplus stocking of goods. You can also establish ideal re-ordering schedules for certain products.
For instance, if a certain product runs out every 3 or 4 days, you can arrange for it to be restocked on a pre-set interval.
Also, modern stocktaking can enable you to establish exactly where stock shortages are occurring by analysing data from POS terminals and tills.
Any discrepancies between stock data and sales data can immediately inform you of where the shortages are occurring.
Conclusion
Stocktaking has never been more important in the world of business. Businesses that choose to undertake this crucial activity on a regular basis should expect to enjoy the above benefits and many more.
If you need help managing your inventory, then look no further than ASP Microcomputers. We are the market leader when it comes to the development of customised and packaged solutions.
This includes Inventory Management, Portable Barcode Readers, Supply Chain Management, Time and Attendance and Asset Tracking to name but a few. Please call us today on 1800 061 642 or contact us through our website.
