Storekeeping, Stock Control and Stores Management

Stock Room Definition

It is an area set aside where all items and materials needed for production and/or sales/distribution are received, where they are housed for safekeeping, and from where they will be issued, as needed.
The assorted items and materials received, housed, and issued from stores are referred to collectively as being stock (or ‘inventory’), hence the use of the term stock control.
Some items and materials might be solid, others might be liquid, and others might be gaseous. We shall refer to all things held in stores as items, stock items, materials, or stock.

Stock Controller Tasks

They perform any combination of the following tasks: compile records concerned with ordering, receiving, storing, issuing, and shipping materials, supplies, and equipment

• Compiles data from sources, such as contracts, purchase orders, invoices, requisitions, and accounting reports, and writes, types, or enters information into computers to keep inventory, buying, shipping, or other records.
• Keeps a back-order file in established sequence and releases back orders for issue or shipment as stock becomes available.
• Compiles stock control records and information, such as consumption rate, characteristics of items in storage, and current market conditions, to determine stock supply and need for replenishment.
• Prepares requisitions, orders, and other documents for buying or requisitioning new/additional stock items.
• Compares classification, stock numbers, authorized substitutes, and other listed information with catalogues, manuals, parts lists, and similar references, to verify accuracy of requisitions and shipping orders.
• Reviews files to determine unused items and recommends disposal of excess stock.

Click here to view a video on stock control.

Store Management

Whatever its size and the volume of its stocks, the success of the enterprise can depend to a significant extent on the efficient management of its store and stocks. Let us examine why that is so.

All the possessions of an enterprise – that is, what it owns – are called its ‘assets’. Frequently, the value of the stocks of goods and/or materials held in its store is as great as – if not greater than – the total value of all its other possessions – e.g. land and/or buildings, plant, machinery, motor vehicles, equipment, etc., and of course, money and investments – added together.

The items and/or materials in the store cost money; if through bad stores management, there are too many items held in the store or if the wrong items or materials are being held, money will be “tied up” – money that might be required to buy other needed items and/or materials, or to pay the many expenses involved in running the enterprise.

Equally, if poor store management has led to shortages of needed items and materials, there will be hold-ups and interruptions in production or loss of production and/or loss of sales to customers and, indeed, loss of the customers themselves, and loss of profits, which can, in turn, lead to job losses and, in extreme cases, to the collapse of the enterprise.

If items in the store are lost, stolen, or damaged in any way, the enterprise loses money.

It costs money to run a store; on building maintenance and/or rent, salaries of store personnel, containers and equipment, heating or cooling, lighting and power, etc. The enterprise must receive a “return” from its expenditure, in terms of efficiency, particularly as its store is non-productive.