Small Business- Online Selling..

[bozzer1]

Hi there, we are a small retail business selling online, have a few questions and would be great to get some advice!

 

[Lee-finance]

Hi and welcome to the site, what questions do you have?

 

[bozzer1]

Hi there, thank you.
My question is in regard to stock valuation.
Over the 5 years we have been operating we have several lines of stock that have either not sold or sold very very slowly, our accountant has advised us to de-value non moving lines on the spreadsheet in order to defer income tax.
I appreciate it makes business sense as these lines are not worth their original value.
However, my question is how much do we de-value by and how much each month? Is there a standard % drop we should apply?
We will also drop the selling price in a bid to sell off the non moving lines, my original idea was to just sell non moving lines at a 'loss' and leave their original cost value the same as it basically has the same effect on reducing profits each month...
Although if we do de-value stock what are peoples thoughts on what is a reasonable % drop and how often.. i.e. if the lines start moving after we drop the price is it then no longer reasonable to reduce their value on the stock sheet the following month?
With the exception of one line of stock we hold (which should actually go up in value) couldn't we just depreciate all of our stock by say... 1% a month or is this not allowed/ unethical etc...
Having not devalued any of our stock over the last 5 years I see that this is now causing a problem as we have a stock valuation which is no longer realistic..
My other question is in regard to how often should we be looking to devalue non moving stock.. i.e. monthly a bit at a time or toward the end of the tax year- say the last 3 months?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Paul