Inventory schedule
Our previous article was about inventory rules, a significant part of which consists of the inventory schedule, as inventory has to take place on the basis of the inventory preparation and inventory rules specified by the company. Just like the entirety of the rules, the schedule that forms a part of it also has to be prepared by tailoring it to the economic operator’s characteristics, activities, and organisational structure.
Among other things, the inventory rules contain the practical procedures and evaluation principles specified and applied by the company. In line with the company’s activities, the rules are generally made for a number of years and do not extend to short-term or ad hoc requirements. The purpose of the schedule is therefore precisely to harmonise the steps and tasks of inventory a given financial year:
it consists of an action plan.
To ensure that all factors specified by the inventory rules are taken into consideration when the inventory is completed by the necessary deadline, the schedule has to be drawn up in suitable detail. For the sake of completeness, it is worth considering the case where a change takes place in the company’s activities or it establishes a new site. Naturally, in this case it is necessary to amend the parts pertaining to the changes of the schedule accordingly.
The following are required for compiling the inventory schedule:
- the starting and end dates for all workflows in connection with the preparation, recording, assessment, and checking of the inventory process have to be recorded, and
- the persons responsible for performing and checking these workflows have to be named
- the dates of the inventories or, in case of continuous inventory, the time interval has to be specified;
- the sphere of assets and the manner for inventory them has to be recorded,
- the inventory units have to be specified
- the inventory groups have to be specified (including the persons responsible for groups, the sphere of assets and liabilities to be inventories, and the start and deadline of the inventory)
- inventory zones that are physically clearly delineated have to be marked (item numbers, taking into account counting/recording difficulties)
- the positions and persons of inventory-takers and the persons of inventory inspectors and of inventory assessors have to be specified for each zone;
- the working time requirement of the various inventories have to be planned
- the inventory follow-up tasks have to be specified, i.e. the recorded data have to be aligned with the actual data
The inventory manager is responsible for the professional preparation, management, technical and operative implementation, and control of the inventory and the subsequent inventory assessment. The inventory manager is also required to perform and issue the all-important inventory schedule, which includes the tasks to be performed during the year and during the inventory. Other responsibilities include essential training, in the course of which the inventory manager teaches the inventory-takers of the rules of making inventory and the important points of the inventory schedule that apply to them.
The above provide clear guidelines on how to prepare the inventory schedule. However, it is recommended that an expert is consulted to determine whether the schedule extends to all the necessary details. Contact us if you don’t feel like putting unnecessary energy into an activity that an expert can do in significantly less time and with greater diligence through experience!
By: Eszter Puskás & András Takács
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