How to run an equipment stocktake in one afternoon, and what to do with what you cannot find

A stocktake is a simple idea that people put off for years: compare what the register says you own with what is actually on the shelves. Done once a year, or after an office move, it takes an afternoon for a small organisation. Done never, the register drifts until nobody trusts it, and then nobody uses it.

Before you start

• Clean the register first. Merge duplicates, mark what was already scrapped, and make sure every item has an inventory number and a place.
• Decide the scope. One room, one office or everything. For the first time, one place is plenty.
• Freeze the moves. Nobody carries equipment between rooms during the count, or the count chases itself.
• Pick two counters. One of them should not be the person responsible for that place.
• Prepare the list per place. The counters should walk with the list in their hands, not with a memory of what should be there.

Count place by place

Go room to room, and check the serial number, not the name: "black laptop" matches three items. Tick what you find where the list says it should be. Note the condition if it changed. Whatever you find that is not on the list goes on a separate sheet as it is, with the serial number if it has one.

Three kinds of difference

When the walk is over, every difference falls into one of three groups, and each needs a different response:

• Missing: on the list, not found. Ask the person responsible, check the other rooms, and give it a few days before you decide it is lost.
• Elsewhere: found, but in a different place from the register. This is the easy one: correct the location, and note why it moved.
• Surplus: found, but not in the register. Somebody bought it, received it as a gift, or it was written off by mistake. Identify it and register it, or find out whose it is.

Close it with a report

A stocktake without a written result is a walk through the office. The report should say when it was done, where, who counted, how many items were expected and found, and every difference with an explanation and a decision: found later, location corrected, registered as new, or written off with a reason. Keep the report with the register. The next stocktake starts from it.

For accounting purposes, inventories of assets and liabilities are governed by the Regulation approved by Ministry of Finance order No. 879 of 02.09.2014, which sets when an inventory is required and how it is documented. This article covers the practical count, not the statutory schedule, so agree the schedule with your accountant.

How often

Once a year for the whole register is the usual rhythm, plus one extra count for a place after every move or a change of the person responsible for it. Equipment that is expensive or easy to carry away, such as laptops and phones, is worth checking more often than desks and shelves: a quick count of one shelf takes minutes and finds a problem while it is still small.

Things counted by quantity

Cables, mice and chargers are not tracked one by one. For these the count is a number per place, compared with the number the records expect, and the difference is a number too: three chargers short in the warehouse. The same report, the same decision, but the answer is a quantity, not a status.

When the spreadsheet stops helping

A spreadsheet can hold the list, but the walk, the three kinds of difference and the report are done by hand every time. In Depot 17 a stocktake is a session for a place: the list opens for counting, each item is marked found, missing or elsewhere, surplus items are added, and quantities are counted against what the ledger expects. The closing report lists every difference and changes nothing by itself: you decide what to do with each one, and a missing item is written off with a reason and, if you have set an approval chain, the approvals. See what the assets module does.

Source: Ministry of Finance of Ukraine order No. 879 of 02.09.2014 (Regulation on inventory of assets and liabilities). This article is a practical summary, not legal or tax advice.