Year-end stock count for head office: timeline and deliverables

Every year the same message arrives from head office: send the closing stock by item, with quantities and values, by a date that is closer than anyone in the warehouse would like. The local team has issued and received goods all year, the records in 1C have been corrected many times, and nobody is quite sure how closely they match the shelves. A year-end count that head office can trust is mostly a matter of planning backwards from the date they need the figures.

Agree three things with head office first

Before anyone picks up a clipboard, get written answers to three questions.

• Cut-off: the exact date and hour at which stock is measured, for example close of business on 31 December.
• Basis: quantities only, or quantities multiplied by cost? In which currency, and at which cost price?
• Format: head office's own template, or a list by item code that your finance team can reshape?

Many counts fail here: the warehouse counts shelf by shelf, head office wanted stock by project, and two weeks go on converting one into the other.

A timeline worked backwards

Take an example with invented dates. Head office needs signed figures by 12 January, and the cut-off is the end of 31 December.

1. Four weeks before the cut-off: confirm the purpose, scope, units and item codes, and export book stock from 1C, Excel or your ERP.
2. Two weeks before: clean the export, list every storage location including project sites and third-party stores, name the counting teams, and tell suppliers and customers when movements will pause.
3. Cut-off week: tidy and label the goods, finish the last receipts and issues, then count zone by zone.
4. Two or three days after counting: recount the zones that do not match, compare with the books and sort the differences by cause.
5. The last few days: go through the difference list with your finance team, then sign.

Public holidays at the turn of the year reduce available staff on both sides, so treat them as lost days.

Who does what

Even in a small company a count needs four roles:

• the sponsor (general or finance manager), who owns the purpose and signs the result;
• the count lead, who runs the schedule and settles disputes on the spot;
• counters and checkers, working in pairs;
• the data owner, usually the local accountant or whoever exports the figures from 1C, who answers questions about documents.

Do not let storekeepers count the stock they manage on their own: a second pair of eyes, from another department or a third party, keeps the figures from being questioned later. Their knowledge is still essential, so have them walk with the counters.

What head office expects, and how to read the result

Head office rarely wants raw count sheets. It usually wants:

• a difference list showing surplus and shortage for each item, with quantity, value, location and likely cause;
• count records signed by the people who counted and checked;
• a one-page summary explaining the main differences;
• a data file by item code that fits its own reporting structure.

Large differences are always questioned first, so a written explanation prepared in advance saves a round of emails.

To see how to read a result, take an illustration. Suppose book stock at the cut-off is 4.2 billion UZS across 1,850 items. The count finds differences on 37 items: shortages of 18 million and surpluses of 6 million. The net difference is 12 million, about 0.29 percent of book value. (The figures are illustrative.)

Report both figures to head office, not only the net. A small net difference may hide two errors that cancel each other out: one item is short while a similar code shows a surplus, because the same goods were booked under the wrong code.

Mistakes that cost the most time

• Counting without a fixed cut-off, so receipts and issues keep changing the books during the count.
• Not telling the local accountant, who keeps posting documents dated before the cut-off.
• Counting the main warehouse and forgetting goods at project sites, with subcontractors or in transit.
• Leaving units unmatched: head office counts pieces, the warehouse counts cartons.
• Starting in the last week of the year.

In short

A year-end count is a project with a deadline, and its quality is decided mostly before the first item is counted. UzWarehouse carries out year-end and quarterly counts as an independent third party, matches the results line by line with your 1C, Excel or ERP records and gives your finance team a difference list that is ready for approval.