Best way to keep track of stock and other 'accessories'/'ancilliaries'

[SmithsCo]

Just wondering how do you guys keep track of things such as mailing bags, bubble envelopes, labels etc? I find it difficult to keep track of what we're using so we always end up ordering last minute!

I'd like to be able to use an Excel file for this -- e.g. I'd like to include order dates, quantity, how many I'm using, how many are left etc. Is there an easier way to do it than to create an Excel file manually? Perhaps there's a template I can use?

Thanks!

 

[Socio South West]

You don't mention volumes, but if it is serious volumes (1000s per week) , look at either a stand alone inventory management app, or one that will bolt into your accounts package - something like SOS Inventory that bolts into Quickbooks. ( I am not recommending it though... just a suggestion of the type of thing)

If your useage is small.. say 500 or less packages a week, then it looks like a simple spreadsheet solution is the way to go where you enter the breakdown of packages per week and the stock of the relevant items is automatically calculated. I think the time you would spend tinkering with a template would be just as well spent creating a simple Excel sheet in this case.

 

[Deleted member 335660]

Yes I use Excel. I set up item then use columns to indicate volume purchases each quarter and at the end of year do stock check. Formulas then tell me usage both annually and how many months Stock I have left.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Why not just keep it simple, insert a red card in the pack, so f you use 200 per month insert the red card about half way through the pack so you know its time to order new stock

 

[Deleted member 59730]

No one has mentioned the most economic re-order quantity. It might pay you to order more at a time. There are well known formulae to calculate this.

 

[The Byre]

Why not just keep it simple, insert a red card in the pack, so f you use 200 per month insert the red card about half way through the pack so you know its time to order new stock

This!

There's no magic software that can count up how much bubble-wrap you have got left, especially if someone used it and didn't bother to faff about with silly software as they were in a rush. Nobody in their right mind is going to waste time entering the fact that they used 5m of bubble-wrap into a spreadsheet. (And I would personally and with great pleasure, pull someone up by the gonads if they started playing silly games like that!)

Anyone who has ever gone shopping knows how to cope with this, oh so difficult problem. "How much sugar is in there? Two packs? We should have 10 in stock, so I'll buy eight."

A red card halfway down the drawer is how retail chemists always did it. As soon as the assistant reached the red card in a drawer full of some obscure medicine, he/she took the hole-punch order card from the front of the drawer and popped it into a machine that automatically read them and sent the standard order to the wholesaler. The pills arrived the next day.

And chemists have to keep tabs on hundreds and hundreds of different items!

That was back in the day before computers and it worked a treat.

 

[BusterBloodvessel]

I can’t help but agree with the above really…..regardless of what quantity you’re using (unless perhaps you’re on the scale of thousands of packages daily across multiple sites)….I think anything you do would be over complicating things.

I’d be putting a decent stock level in relevant to how often you tend to order supplies and a system of either carding as above, or a once a week check and somebody places an order, or a “when you take the last pack you alert somebody to order more” rule.

Slightly different but similar scenario in our sandwich shop, I’ve been sick to the back teeth of finding out we’ve suddenly run out of menial things like soup pots, salad boxes, grease proof paper sheets, napkins etc then somebody is wasting an hour dashing to the cash and carry to get some. So we’ve calculated roughly how many we use in a week and doubled it, and put that quantity in stock. We go to the cash and carry and/or place orders for delivery once a week so the day they’re going they count how many we’ve got, and how many we need to get back to the two week level, and that’s how many they buy.

It means we’ve always more than enough, if we have a busier than usual week we still have coverage and even if one week somebody can’t get to the cash and carry we can pretty much guarantee to go another full week without stressing about it.

It is a little bit gutting to spend a load of money at once on stuff that feels like it has no value really….spending hundreds of pounds all at once just to stock up on paper sheets and polystyrene pots feels like a kick in the nads, but once it’s done it’s done (it also means we’re buying more economically buying by the case in many instances)

 

[Deleted member 335660]

Why not just keep it simple, insert a red card in the pack, so f you use 200 per month insert the red card about half way through the pack so you know its time to order new stock

The good old days