Inventory: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

A new article has been posted to the TAM Retail Blog by Jennifer Chan:

Time to close the store and wear clothes you can get dirty in.  Maybe you’ll crawl on all fours in a dark corner of a warehouse, to look for SKUs where the description listed gives you no idea what it is you are looking for, only that there are four of them.  (Does that still happen?)

Your partners at TAM Retail are here to help!  Hopefully you’ve seen our Training Specialist, Dawn Downing’s blog post earlier this month (December 4^th) reminding you of the lessons available to you through TAM’s Online Training Academy.  There is a whole unit on physical inventory, which is chock full of information that will help you run your inventory process smoothly and efficiently (and own it!). If you missed it, click here.

For example, Lesson 1 is “Preparing to Count Your Store”.  This lesson gives you helpful tips that are valuable in both what they provide (saved time and energy), and what they keep you from (trouble).  These tips can be summarized in 8 “Do” statements:

1. Do create the count sheet at the right time (not too soon).
2. Do quarantine any new SKUs that arrive during the inventory.
3. Do verify your polling is up-to-date before creating the count sheet (Dawn shows you how to check this).
4. Do acknowledge any pending transfers at other locations before creating the count sheet.
5. Do count open layaways and open customer orders.
6. Do choose your inventory method in advance, and determine whether you’re set up for handheld devices (Dawn shows you how to check this).
7. Do purge old count sheets from past inventories (Dawn shows you how to first check for old sheets, and then purge them).
   And finally, after you’re shown how to create the count sheet,
8. Do save a .pdf file of the count sheet (for just in case).

The other lessons cover the important parts of the inventory process from performing the count through merging, auditing, and posting it.

As a reminder, you can view these lessons and any other training videos anytime through Academy Ocean.  There’s link at the sign-in page to reset your password if you’ve forgotten it.  If you need access to the training website, contact the TAM Help Desk at 866-435-7826.

Happy counting!