A stock count is the one task where being slow and careful is better than being quick, and where the honest answer is always worth more than the tidy one. Most stock loss is not theft. It is breakage, miscounting and paperwork, and a count that hides a difference makes the real cause impossible to find.
Count in groups you can see. Tens for small items, fives for larger ones. Counting one by one past about twenty is where people lose their place, and starting again costs more time than the grouping did.
Write it down as you go, not at the end. Not on your hand and not in your head. On the sheet or in the device, item by item, as you finish each one.
Count what is actually there. Not what the shelf label says, not what you counted last week, and not what somebody tells you should be there. A count that agrees with the system because you expected it to agree is worthless, and everybody involved knows it.
Then compare, and report the difference as it is. If the system says 48 and you count 45, the count is 3 short and you write 45. Do not adjust your number to fit. The difference is the entire point of counting.
Ordinary reasons for a difference, worth mentioning when you report: breakages not written off, a delivery not yet captured, items moved to another department, a customer return put straight back on the shelf, or two people counting the same shelf.
The system says 48 units. You count 45 twice and get 45 both times.
What happens: Now the shortage is invisible and it will appear again next month, larger, with no way to trace when it started. This is the single most damaging thing anybody does in a stock count, and it is almost always done out of fear rather than dishonesty.
What happens: Correct. Your job is to report what is there. The note about the display unit is what turns a bare number into something a manager can actually investigate.
What if the difference is my fault?
Say so. A breakage you admit to is a cost of doing business and every shop has them budgeted. A breakage that appears as an unexplained shortage months later is a different conversation entirely, and much harder for anybody to be relaxed about.
I keep losing my place when I count
Group into tens and move each group as you count it, or turn it, or put it on a different part of the shelf, so you can see what is done. The physical separation does the remembering for you. Nobody counts 137 loose items accurately in one pass.
Somebody senior told me to write the system number
Ask for it in writing, or ask them to record it themselves. That is not being difficult. If the number is later questioned, the sheet is what gets looked at, and your name is on it. Most of the time the request comes from pressure to close the count quickly, not from anything worse, and asking politely ends it.
Before you move on
- Count in groups of ten and separate each group
- Write each item down as you finish it
- Report the number you counted, not the number expected
Check what you know
4 questions. Have a look at what this lesson asks.
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