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An inventory spreadsheet template is used by the business owners to keep track of goods or properties so they can decide on what to do next. This document allows them to stay on track when monitoring their inventory.
Key elements of inventory spreadsheet:
A well-made inventory spreadsheet should have following key elements;
- The locations where you want to store your goods.
- Descriptions of the inventory items. These descriptions should be consistent, well-organized, and unique.
- Short item identifiers.
- Units of measure. They should be formatted consistently and used correctly.
- For all inventory items, a starting counts. Also, state that where they are located and other essential information.
- Solid policies for inventory management. You can use these policies to train your employees in.
The advantages of using an inventory spreadsheet:
- It allows you to gain access to the quantities of your products that are in stock.
- By tracking inventories regularly, you can identify accurately which certain products need reordering.
- You can view your sales, monitor your top suppliers, and determine bestselling items with the help of this document.
- Usually, small businesses use this document to enter data easily, access products quickly, and know the order details.
How to create an inventory system?
The inventory management is the most important part of the businesses. For this, you require an inventory spreadsheet. Below are some steps that you should follow for creating inventory system;
- Insert a table.
- Modify the table and edit the content.
- Then, provide your business details and add your logo.
- Enter your inventory list.
You will have the accurate products in the suitable quantity on-hand if you can maintain your inventory. You should also avoid products getting out of stock. Moreover, to avoid obsolescence, spoilage, and spending too many on stocks, you should make sure that your products will get sold on time.
How to make an inventory spreadsheet in Excel?
The inventory management is the backbone for any business with products to sell. For creating an inventory spreadsheet, you should use MS Excel because it is an excellent tool. Here are some tips on creating an inventory spreadsheet in Excel;
- Many professionals don’t create an inventory spreadsheet in Excel because they think that humans tend to make mistakes. They think that finding mistakes on Excel is difficult. However, you can avoid such mistakes by doing a daily review and self-auditing.
- The person who handles the orders must update the sheet to avoid issues. For inventory management, Excel isn’t a real-time solution you can’t see the real value of inventory. Therefore, you should update the document to avoid issues related to your inventory.
- You should consolidate your data each month. In this way, you can create charts that indicate how much you have sold for that month. You should do this regularly while focusing on special occasions and holidays.
- By using Excel, you can’t identify the historical data. But you can fix the problem by adding the whole month’s data into a pivot table. This is time-consuming.
- However, excel is an efficient tool for keeping track of inventory. The Excel efficiency is based on how you keep track of and calculate everything. The figures that you used in your computations should be reviewed so that they are all correct. This takes less time and prevents expensive mistakes in the future.
- Enter the data in the Excel manually. Moreover, with medium to large inventory volumes Excel doesn’t work as effectively. This is because these require hundreds of columns that might be too time-consuming and complex.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, an inventory spreadsheet template is used in inventory management to keep record of goods or properties so that they can decide what to do next. The use of an inventory spreadsheet may vary; you can use it either for managing personal possession, food stocks, business assets, etc.
