The week before a stock count: a preparation checklist

Most of a count's hours are not spent counting. They go on searching for goods, moving them and arguing. A week of preparation can often shorten the count itself by several days. Below is a checklist worked backwards from count day, which you can use as it stands.

Seven days before: scope and people

• Write down the scope: which warehouses and areas, and goods of different ownership, including your own, consigned, customer-owned and goods out for repair. This avoids finding halfway through that something was missed or counted by mistake.
• Form counting teams of two, one counting and one recording, with a supervisor and a data person.
• Hold a 30-minute briefing so that storekeepers understand the timing, the process and the requirements. Listen to them too: they know best how the locations are laid out and where goods get mixed up.

Five days before: the books

• Export stock by item and location from the system, then prepare printed or electronic count sheets. Ideally the sheets do not show the book quantity, so counters write what they see and are not led by the figure.
• Remove duplicate records and unify the units of measure.
• Make sure all documents up to the cut-off are posted, and chase delivery notes that nobody has signed.
• Agree with the local accountant how documents after the cut-off are handled, for example filed separately so they do not mix with pre-count data.

Three days to one day before: the floor

• Clear rubbish, group identical goods and open mixed pallets.
• Mark zones and locations with letters or numbers.
• Move damaged, returned and pending goods to a marked area.
• Tag goods of unknown ownership and list them separately.
• Check scales, tape measures, ladders, lighting and the battery level of handheld devices.
• Pre-pack loose small parts into sealed bags of a fixed quantity, for example 50, with the number written on the bag.
• Count pallets of identical cartons as layers times cartons per layer, plus loose cartons on top, and mark the result on the pallet.
• For high racking, confirm a safe way to reach the goods and arrange lifting equipment. Nobody should take risks to get a number.
• For bulk materials such as sand, grain or cement, agree beforehand whether to measure by weight or volume and how to convert.
• On the last day, walk the warehouse with the supervisor to confirm that signs are up and aisles are clear. Tell suppliers and drivers when receipts and issues will stop, and confirm who is turning up next morning.

Count day: what to bring and which rules to set

Bring numbered count sheets with spares, clipboards, pens rather than pencils, stickers to mark counted locations, marker pens, a scale and tape measure, gloves, a ladder, torches, a phone for photos and a charged power bank. Keep a box of spare sheets on the supervisor's desk.

Announce a few simple rules at the morning briefing:

• A location is finished only when its sticker is on it, so nothing is counted twice or skipped.
• The recorder writes the number in front of the counter, who confirms it aloud.
• Anything doubtful, such as an unreadable label, unknown owner or damaged pack, gets a flag and a photo, never a guess.
• No goods move between zones during counting unless the supervisor writes it down.
• Questions about documents go to the data person, not to whoever happens to be nearby.
• Breaks are staggered so that no zone is left without a team.

Estimating the workload

An invented example: a warehouse has 600 locations and three counting teams. If each team handles around 15 locations an hour (an assumption, so measure it in a trial area), that is 45 an hour, and 600 ÷ 45 is about 13.3 hours. Add around 20 percent for recounts and breaks and you get about 16 hours, roughly two working days. Allow for lunch breaks, shift changes and equipment problems too. An estimate like this helps you decide whether to add people or split the count over two days.

In short

Preparation decides whether a count is fast or slow. UzWarehouse agrees the plan and basis before counting, aligning units of measure, item codes and the cut-off date, so that count day has fewer detours.