Inventory Time

Finished my annual inventory of my supplies this week. I have an Excel spreadsheet that I made with amount purchased in the summer, price paid, and amount on hand in January. I have accumulated this information for over twenty years making for a rather large spreadsheet that needs the hide columns feature to make it workable. In 1987, I paid $29.81 for a case of J&J Coach, this year I paid $37.42.

This process helps me in deciding what I will need to purchase next summer. It also helps to alert me if I may be running out of an important item before the next purchase cycle. This year I am running low on plastic wrap. I will probably have to pick up some more to make it through the year.

Inventory of your supplies gives you a snapshot of your program. Sometimes you find that you have more of something than you thought, sometimes less. It also alerts you to situations were people may be wasting supplies. Maybe someone is using an Elatikon or a Elatoplast type tape when just plain elastic will do. Sometimes I let things run out so everyone learns to do without. Something we all should do now and again as necessity is the mother of invention. Having this information also can help in justifying budget increases. Showing your administrator that your costs have slowly risen over the last couple of years will go a long way in convincing them to increase your budget.

I use to print out the spreadsheet and enter the numbers on paper and then transfer them into the spreadsheet. I now use a PDA. I download the spreadsheet into a PDA, do the inventory and then download the file back into my PC. It saves a lot of time.

FYI: I am kind of a geek. I like technology.

Another thing I do throughout the year is write down any item that I see we are getting low on. I do not wait for the inventory. This is kept in a file folder for next years purchases. This helps tremendously when I work on purchasing. My actual purchase procedure I will save for a later entry.