Physical Inventory Season is Upon Us

A new article has been posted on the TAM blog by Dawn Downing:

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 are here to help! Have you reviewed the lessons available within TAM’s free Online Learning Academy?  If not, 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!).

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 (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 The TAM Online Training Academy.  If you have not enrolled yourself or your staff in the academy, simply forward the name, email address and the name of the organization of the enrollee.to Help@tamb2cc.com.  Or if you prefer, click the link, and register for the Application Learning Academy within the Home Screen of TAM Office:

Happy counting!