Receiving stock the right way: a 5-minute SOP
Most inventory errors aren’t made during counts — they’re made the moment stock arrives and nobody checks it in properly. A box gets shoved on a shelf, the count never updates, and a week later your numbers are fiction. A short, consistent receiving routine stops the rot at the door. Here’s the SOP.
1. Verify against the order — before you sign
Match the delivery to your purchase order and the supplier’s packing slip. Right items? Right quantities? Don’t sign off on a damaged or short delivery as if it were complete — once you’ve signed, the discrepancy becomes your problem, not the carrier’s.
2. Count what’s actually in the box
Trust the carton, verify the contents. Count the real units, not the number printed on the label. This is the single highest-leverage 60 seconds in the whole process — a miscount here propagates into every report downstream.
3. Inspect for damage and dates
Check condition, and for anything perishable, record the expiry or best-before date so you can rotate first-expiry-first-out later (see FIFO vs. LIFO vs. FEFO). Damaged goods get flagged now, while you still have recourse with the supplier.
4. Receive it into the system
Update the stock count immediately — ideally right there at the dock from a phone, not back at a desk “later.” Later is where accuracy goes to die. Logging it on the spot is what keeps your on-hand number true to the shelf.
5. Label and put away
Tag new items with a QR code and put them in their home location — new stock behind old, so FIFO happens naturally. If your stockroom doesn’t have obvious homes yet, fix that first: organising a stockroom so anyone can find anything.
Why the routine matters more than the speed
Five minutes done the same way every time beats a fast, sloppy check-in that you pay for later in a painful reconciliation. Accurate receiving is the cheapest accuracy you’ll ever buy — it’s correctness at the source.