Year-end stock count checklist for a factory warehouse

A year-end count takes one day but a month to prepare. If preparation starts late, count day is spent closing slips, hunting for labels and assembling a team, and the actual count takes second place. In a factory warehouse this matters even more, because raw materials, semi-finished and finished goods all move at once. Below is a checklist that starts a month before the count. In the example the count date is 28 December. A month leaves time for things that cannot be done in a day, such as printing labels, measuring, correspondence and team planning.

One month before: scope and responsibilities (28 November)

• Define in writing the warehouses and zones to be counted, and the goods at subcontractors and in transit.
• Appoint the count supervisor, the team leads and a representative of accounting.
• Confirm the closing calendar with your local accountant, so it is clear by which date the count results must be posted.
• Choose the cut-off time: receipts and issues posted after that time fall after the count.
• Tell head office the count date and the report format.

Two weeks before: records (14 December)

• List the open orders, the goods in transit and the balance at subcontractors.
• Clear or flag negative balances and duplicate items.
• Measure and label unlabelled rolls and mixed pallets.
• Print and number the count tags.
• Work out the number of teams from the number of zones.

An example of the team calculation: there are 24 zones, and one pair can count 3 zones in a day and check 3 zones of another pair. Since every zone is counted once and checked once, there are 24 + 24 = 48 zone jobs in all. If a pair does 6 jobs a day, 48 ÷ 6 = 8 pairs, or 16 people, are needed. If there are not enough people, either the count spreads over two days or the check count is done only in the high-value zones.

The last week: preparing the floor (21 December)

• Fix the warehouse sketch and zone names; have tape and strips ready for zone locking.
• Check that measuring tools such as scales and tape measures work.
• Review the dispatch and goods-receipt calendar with production and sales; move heavy movement to before or after count day.
• Write the agenda of the team briefing and the recount threshold.
• On the day before the count (27 December), close the last slips and put up the zone markers.

In the last week stop opening new items and treat the item list as frozen; if a code changes during the count, the tags, the records and the variance table stop agreeing. Collect the phone numbers of the people in charge on one sheet and give it to the team leads.

Count day

• At the cut-off time the documents are closed and the tags handed out.
• When one team finishes a zone, another team does a check count.
• Lines that do not agree are recounted the same day.
• At the end of the day the tags are collected; printed, used and cancelled tags must add up to the number printed.
• The list of opened, damaged and unlabelled items is closed.

Postpone jobs unrelated to the count, such as printing new labels or correcting items. In each zone the team lead is the single decision point: questions come to him, and he consults the warehouse manager when needed.

After the count: the reporting flow

The value of a count depends on how fast the result reaches the records and management. An example flow:

1. The first day after the count: raw results are entered in Excel and compared with the records.
2. Days two and three: differences are sorted by cause (unposted slip, wrong item, unit error, genuine shortage) and ranked by value.
3. End of the first week: the count certificate is signed, and the variance table and head-office summary are sent.
4. Before the close: correction entries are posted together with accounting.

Adjust the timings to your business, but give every step an owner and a date.

In short

A well-prepared year-end count keeps count day calm and reporting day short. StockSystem chooses the count day around your production and dispatch plan, shares the zones among its teams and closes the last receipts and issues up to that day together with you.