Inventory management and inventory valuation

Stock changes for three reasons: what you receive, what you deliver and what you adjust yourself, for example through a transfer, a rejection or a correction. A wholesaler has hundreds of these daily. A small producer has fewer, but each one also touches raw materials and semi-finished goods. Stock is under control when every movement is in the books at the moment it happens, with the right item number and the right location.

Stock value is the quantity multiplied by the valuation price, added up across all items. The valuation method is how you set that price, and so the method decides the value on the balance sheet and the cost price of what you sell. Under FIFO the oldest purchase leaves stock first, so what remains is valued at the most recent purchase prices. With an average price the system works with the weighted average of what you bought. With a fixed price you use a standard, and differences from actual purchase cost are booked separately.

Which method suits depends on your product and how prices move. If purchase prices barely change, the differences are small. If they swing, the choice affects your result. What matters is that you apply the method consistently and that your accountant knows which one it is.

An example. A wholesaler buys an item in three lots at three different prices. If you sell two, the question is which purchase price you assign to those two. The answer sets your margin on that sale and the value of what is left. The same stock can therefore be valued in two ways without anything changing in the goods themselves. That is why the choice of method belongs in your agreements with your accountant, not only in the settings of the system.

Finally there is counting. The books say what should be on the shelves, and a stock take shows what is there. A difference is a signal. Something has not been booked, something has gone missing or a quantity is wrong.

In Uniconta, stock is updated on receipts, deliveries and mutations. For valuation you choose between FIFO, an average price and a fixed price. You can work with several locations and transfer stock between them. Serial numbers and batch numbers can be tracked, and EAN numbers are held in the central item data.

For counting, Uniconta has a count list. You enter the counted quantities and see the difference from the books. You can transfer the result to a draft, and the list can be exported and imported as CSV. A stock take then becomes a standard routine rather than a loose spreadsheet.

What Uniconta does not list as a function is an analysis of slow-moving stock. That remains a task for you and your accountant. Look at the oldest items, decide what you will do with them and write them down where needed. What the standard package covers exactly is agreed beforehand.