North West Stocktakers

General information

Stocktaking is an arduous, but essential task. As soon as most owners, directors, managers and staff hear the word 'stocktaking', they recall the hours of counting, listing stock, plus the drudgery of endless collating and compiling of figures.

Let's be honest, most people dislike doing stocktaking; it's time consuming, tiring, even boring and never seems to finish, so why do so many businesses still carry this out themselves?

In our experience as specialist stocktakers and valuers, it's only when they add up the total cost of man hours, overtime and inconvenience caused, that they can see that it isn't always the most cost effective way. Most businesses require stocktaking to be carried out quickly, efficiently and accurately, with as little disruption to normal trading as possible. Therefore is it not wise to consider using a professional stocktaking company, that specialises in your business?

Most business owners know that without keeping a regular check on stock figures, they will be unable to detect losses, such as staff pilferage or shoplifting. Without this deterrent, these losses will accumulate and increase each year, thereby causing serious problems to their cash flow and continued profitability.

This problem could also produce a lower gross profit margin than is expected for their trade, which could give rise to an investigation from the Inland Revenue and the Customs and Excise VAT Office, all of which will undoubtedly involve unnecessary costs.

The usual requirement is for a fast, accurate count, without any disruption to normal trading. Using our systems, we are able to carry out full stocktakes throughout the day, regardless of whether the business is trading or not.

So long as a note of the takings is made for the period of stocktaking, it is a simple equation to adjust for any allowance.

The systems we operate have been tried and tested over many years and are accepted by all the relevant government bodies, auditors and accountants.

Our systems enable our valuers to complete both the count and paperwork on site, giving the business a full certificate of valuation on the day, showing total stock figures.

Our service is further backed up by a detailed report showing the amounts of stock under each relevant category for that trade. This is a must for stock insurance, as it enables the business to check that its stock is insured with the correct amount of cover.

We often hear of business owners, who try to save money by carrying out the stocktake themselves. We try to advise that this really is a false economy when they take into account the hassle it causes them and the hours needed to complete the task.

Other business owners tell us "I have a full EPOS (Electronic Point Of Sale) system and it gives me my stock figures". Our advice is that you can never really be sure of your stock holding without a manual count. No matter how computerised you become, you will still need to count the stock physically.

EPOS is a great business tool, but it cannot carry out a stocktake; it takes no account of shop lifting or internal staff theft and many things can go wrong during a financial year. You only have to input the wrong quantities during a busy period and the figures become unreliable.

You should not rely upon an EPOS system to provide your end of financial year stock figures without at least carrying out many spot checks. Even then, for the costs involved, you still cannot beat a full physical count, count carried out by a professional stocktaking organisation like Henderson Stocktakers.

Our fees are remarkably cost effective and on many occasions work out cheaper than taking on this task yourselves; you can be confident that by using north west Stocktakers, with our many years of experience, making us the UK's number one stocktaking organisation, that the figures given by us and entered into your accounts are correct.