ASSUME NOTHING, COUNT EVERYTHING!

Madam Gold owns multiple shops in Lagos-the commercial capital of Nigeria.Like other major clothiers, her stores were beautifully adorned and filled with expensive lace materials ranging from Bobbin lace, Crocheted lace,French lace, Cord lace to host of other expensive lace materials worth tens of million naira.She also have a warehouse that is almost filled to capacity with lace materials estimated to worth hundreds of millions.

She engages the services of Store assistants and she believes that these store assistants being members of her extended family, means she's immuned against any form of pilferages or fraud. Business was booming with reasonable sales per day and rate of turnover was impressive. She was running to the bank, her cash at bank was infact increasing at a geometric rate and all seems so well, that she never thought of any STOCK COUNT.

Not quite long Madam Gold begins to experience STOCK-OUT and consequently her customers begins to episode huge dissatisfaction. The story of Madam Gold is a typical story of most retailers,they assume everything and take no physical count. Most often, their success is a fly- by-night! Madam Gold's short-lived success was due to lack of PERIODIC or REGULAR PHYSICAL STOCK COUNT and poor book-keeping. In retail market where STOCK TURNOVER is high, lack of stock count will often mean the owner of the business is unaware of the true financial position of the business and gradually the profit margin and even the capital will be eroded.

The benefits of stocktaking are numerous but are too often over-looked as in the case of Madam Gold. Moreso, stock taking being physical checking or counting of inventory held by an entity, is an essential activity of an entity that wants to maximize her profitability. However, the importance of stock taking cannot be over emphasized and below are the highlighted benefits of regular/periodic stock count;

• Continuous monitoring of Stock to ensure timely delivery of goods ordered by customers.
• Identification of losses or wastages.
• Increased accuracy of accounting records.
• Check on efficiency in production process.
• Helps budgeting and forecasting and entity's adaptability to unforeseen circumstances.

Therefore, we urge all forms of business owners (particularly the retailers) to assume nothing and count everything, because where there's no stock count, there will be stock-out!

For more on inventory management and consultancy, please contact:

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