Stocktaking
Where to start?
This page explains stocktaking from start to finish. The guides below each dig into one question.
Self-run stocktaking
Your teams count with their phones, all year round.
Read the guide →One-off stocktaking
One week, one store, your team, no subscription.
Read the guide →Outsource or keep in-house
Contractor or in-house team: what each brings.
Read the guide →A successful stocktake
Nine practical guides: prepare the count, then reduce unknown shrinkage.
Read the guide →Choosing your inventory software
What it must be able to do, the questions to ask.
Read the guide →Why take stock?
It is a legal obligation
Every French trader must check their stock by a stocktake at least once every twelve months.
French Commercial Code, article L123-12A true stock value
Stock is often a store’s biggest asset: on the balance sheet, its value must be right.
Decisions based on the right figures
Orders, restocking, promotions: everything relies on the stock shown.
Losses brought to light
Every variance has a cause: theft, breakage, a receiving error.
What is a stocktake?
Counting what is really on the shelves and in the stockroom, compared with the expected stock.
Unknown shrinkage
Goods that appear in book stock but are no longer on the shelf. The full guide →
External theft
Shoplifting, in the aisles.
Internal theft
Within the store itself.
Breakage and loss
Damaged or expired products, thrown away without being recorded.
Admin errors
Deliveries keyed in wrong, till errors, returns not deducted.
Counting once a year means finding it twelve months too late. Counting often means acting on the first signs.
What else the variance reveals
Negative stock
Physically impossible: a keying or barcode error.
Ghost SKUs
Still in the catalogue, they inflate the stock value.
Misplaced items
There but nowhere to be found, so restocked for nothing.
Unknown barcodes
Very real products your item list does not know.
Annual, cycle, targeted: three ways to count
The three combine: cycle and targeted counts all year, the annual count for the full picture. The cycle counting guide →
One zone every week: the store never closes, every aisle is checked several times a year.
52 weeks out of 52Counting well, in four steps
Prepare
An up-to-date item list, and book stock frozen at the time of the count.
Split
Clear zones, each opened, counted, then closed.
Check
A double count on sensitive zones, and variances settled on the spot.
Correct
Realign book stock, and deal with the causes.
Make your stock reliable with Quantinvo
Zones and tags, double counting, variances settled live: the tool for this method.