Inventory across branches and warehouses in Nepal: requisitions, transfers and stock in transit

Which four records does a stock movement need?

1. The requisition. The branch asks for what it needs, in writing, and somebody approves it. Approval can be full or partial, because a warehouse rarely has everything a branch wants. Without this step, branches order by phone call and from memory. The warehouse then has no way to decide which of three shops asking at once should come first.

2. The dispatch. The warehouse issues the approved goods. This is the record of what physically left. In a trade with batches or expiry dates, it has to name the batch as well as the quantity. A partial dispatch is normal, and you should be able to record it as partial. Nobody should be forced to close a request they have only half filled.

3. The transit record. Between dispatch and receipt, the goods belong to the business and sit on nobody’s shelf. They need their own line in your records. Skip this and you will either count the goods twice, once at each end, or count them nowhere.

4. The receipt. The receiving branch checks what arrived against what was dispatched, quantity by quantity and batch by batch. The check is against the dispatch, not against a delivery note somebody wrote by hand.

And a fifth, when reality disagrees

At some point the receipt will not match the dispatch. Twelve were sent and eleven arrived, or the wrong item came, or a carton is damaged.

Do not make a quiet adjustment, where the receiving branch writes down eleven and everyone moves on. The difference then disappears into your stock figure with no explanation. You also never see the pattern, and the pattern is the useful part.

Settle the difference instead, and record a reason. Keep these reasons separate:

• Incorrect items sent
• Damaged goods
• Quality issues
• Excess stock received
• Expired or near expiry
• Not received at all
• Late arrival

Each reason points to a different cause. Damage points to packing or the carrier. Wrong items point to picking, the step where staff take goods off the shelf for dispatch. Short deliveries that keep happening at one branch point to yet another cause. After three months of reason codes, you know what to discuss and with whom.

What should you set up before a second location?

One item master, centrally controlled. The item master is your single list of products. Two spellings of the same product, or two codes for it, make every consolidated report (one that combines all locations) wrong. Let branches sell items, not create them.

Locations defined properly. A warehouse is not a branch. A shop with a back store may need two locations. Decide what you need to see separately, because that is what decides how many locations you create.

Reorder levels per location. A reorder level is the stock quantity at which you buy more. The level that makes sense for a high street shop is wrong for a warehouse. Set them per location and review them after a season.

Roles. A branch manager should not approve their own requisitions, because then the approval checks nothing. A cashier should be able to sell without seeing cost or margin.

Pricing policy. Decide whether prices differ by location, and record the decision. Then a price difference will not surprise you in a report.

A valuation basis you can explain. You might value stock at weighted average cost or on another consistent basis. Either way, the closing figure should come from the system. Do not use a spreadsheet that nobody else can reproduce.

The monthly and annual rhythm

Weekly. Look at what is below its reorder level, and at what has not sold at all. The second list costs you more, and nobody asks for it.

Monthly. Review transfers: how many are still in transit, how many were settled with a reason, and whether the reasons cluster. Then review near-expiry stock if your trade has dated goods, at thirty, sixty and ninety days.

At Asar end. Count physically, location by location, and compare with what the system says. Post adjustments with reasons instead of editing quantities. Clear everything still in transit before you close. An unexplained quantity carried into Shrawan undoes the purpose of the close. Our fiscal year closing checklist covers the rest of it.

One rule from the billing procedure applies to all of this. Where you bill electronically, data once entered cannot be deleted. Stock corrections are therefore new records with an audit trail (a record of who changed what and when), not edits. This works in your favour. Every adjustment has an author, a time and a reason, and that is what you need when you are trying to find out how twelve became eleven.

Which branch reports are worth having?

Three views do most of the work.

The same item across every location, in one screen, so a transfer decision takes a minute instead of three phone calls.

Sales and gross margin by location, because a branch with high sales and thin margin is a different problem from a quiet branch with healthy margin.

Stock valuation by location, run on any day you choose, so you know where your working capital, the money tied up in stock, is sitting.

How Kuver Books handles it

Stock movement in Kuver Books follows the five records above rather than a pair of adjustments. Requisitions are formal requests between locations, with full or partial approval. Stock issues dispatch the approved goods from warehouse to warehouse. You select batches where batches apply, and partial dispatch is supported. Stock in transit is created automatically for anything dispatched and not yet received, so the gap has a record. Receiving cross-checks quantity and batch against the dispatch. Anything unaccounted for is resolved through a loss settlement with the reason codes listed above. The settlement posts an adjustment, so the difference stays visible.

On capacity: Unlimited warehouses on every plan. On branches, read this carefully before you buy, because it is the line most vendors leave unclear: Single branch on Standard and Premium; Enterprise covers multi-branch, priced with you.

Alongside the movement records sit the things that make them useful: batch and expiry tracking with near-expiry views, low-stock alerts, stock valuation at weighted average cost, and inventory reports that export for your accountant. One limit: Kuver Books alerts you when stock is low, but it does not place orders for you. We think a person should make each purchase decision.

The inventory page shows how this works, and the reports page shows the reports you get from it.