Planning for inventory stock count is very dependable on inventory type and locations. If it’s just one warehouse and only similar type of goods, it’s more or less easy. You can do it in one day and be done with it.

However, in case there are various locations and / or different types of inventory, it’s more complicated. There more you have locations, there more you have to consider your teams in general – i.e. different for each location – and if not different, then on which days are the counts done. Moreover, in case of various types of goods the teams may need to be different because some are more experienced in one type and not the other. It may also be that not everything can be counted on one day. Or it may even be so that it’s not humanly possible to count everything on one day. There are quite a few things to consider and as such you need to plan them ahead.

What is usually done in this case, is simply spreading out the days and possibly doing the stock counts on weekend to ensure minimum activity in warehouse (of course this depends on your business type).

One thing we also suggest is doing the counts as close to year-end as possible but don’t push it. Simply put, the closer you get, the better, but the difference of one or two weeks will not make such a huge impact on the financial statements.