Inventory accounting is an essential asset for companies since it allows them to reduce the amount of inventory on a business’s balance sheet when they acquire these goods.
This is a significant competitive advantage for firms. The inventory’s key elements include materials, work-in-progress, and finished goods. These can be utilized to categorize inventory.
One of the things that can significantly influence the levels of a company’s profitability is the cost related to the inventory that the organization maintains. Inventory that needs to be appropriately managed and accounted for can significantly contribute to a company’s overall success.
What is Inventory?
A company’s inventory consists of the different products it has obtained to resell to end users. Reselling the things as is may have resided with other items to create a new product.
The value of your inventory exists even before you do anything with it, and as a result, it should be accounted for as an asset on your company’s balance sheet.
But it can rapidly lose its worth if it gets old, goes out of fashion, is damaged, or if the market price of a particular product type falls. Keeping it will also set you back some cash.
Inventory, frequently described as the phase between manufacturing and order fulfillment, is crucial to an organization’s commercial operations because it is frequently the major source of revenue.
Understanding purchasing habits and item sales rates impacts how frequently businesses must replenish inventory and which things are given priority. This data can enhance consumer interactions, cash flow, and profitability and reduce the amount of money lost due to wasted inventory, stockouts, and restocking delays.
10 Example Types Of Inventory
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Raw materials
include materials a business uses to create and complete its products. Raw materials become unrecognizable once the finished product is completed, e.g., using oil as raw material to produce shampoo products.
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Components
are similar to raw materials used to build and finish a product. Still, the difference lies in their visibility on the finished product, e.g., using a screw as a component to produce a table as an end product.
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Work In Progress (WIP)
includes all items currently in production, including raw materials, components, packing materials, labor, and overhead.
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Finished goods
Refer to the products or items ready for retail.
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Packing and Packaging Materials
it is categorized into three types. Primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary packaging materials are used to protect products and keep their usefulness intact.
Meanwhile, secondary packing is concerned with the finished goods packing and can also include SKU information and labels. Lastly, tertiary packing is the packing that handles transport bulk packaging.
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Decoupling Inventory
Decoupling inventory refers to the additional materials or work-in-progress held at each production line station to prevent work stoppages. It is helpful if different production line elements operate at different rates and only apply to organizations that create items.
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Excess Inventory
Excess inventory, also known as obsolete inventory, refers to unused or abandoned items or raw materials that a business does not anticipate using or marketing but must pay to hold.
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Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) Goods
often comes in the form of supplies that help the production of goods or the overall maintenance of a business or company.
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Safety Stock and Anticipation Stock
Safety stock is the excess inventory a business purchases and keeps in preparation for unforeseen situations. It incurs carrying expenses, yet it helps to maintain customer happiness.
Similarly, anticipation stock consists of raw materials or finished goods that a company purchases depending on sales and production patterns. If the price of raw materials rises or peak sales season is approaching, a company may purchase safety stock.
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Service Inventory
is a management accounting approach that refers to the level of service a business can provide for customers at a given time.
How Is Inventory Important In A Business
Inventory is a crucial component of many businesses daily operations. The amount of inventory a business has on hand is recorded as an asset on its balance sheet. Inventory-maintaining businesses need to know the quantity and value of their stock.
Companies may efficiently arrange their budgets when they have access to this inventory information.
Numerous businesses require inventory to function; a business cannot sell what it does not possess. Understanding inventory levels is vital for the smooth operation of these firms.
Inventory Accounting
Inventory accounting allows you to determine the cost and worth of your inventory. It is a process that is essential for determining prices, obtaining insurance, creating a budget, calculating taxes, and marketing a business. It can also assist a business in determining where it generates the most revenue.
Inventory accounting is recording items available, parts, and raw materials that a business either sells or uses for production. As a business owner, you engage in inventory management and accounting to ensure that you have sufficient products and determine when a shortfall exists.
Accounting-wise, inventory is a current asset that relates to all goods in various production phases. By maintaining inventory, retailers and manufacturers can continue to sell or produce products. Inventory is a significant asset on the balance sheet of most businesses; nevertheless, excessive inventory can become a problem.
What Is Inventory Reporting?
Reports are essential for the efficient management of day-to-day company operations. These reports are critical for tracking the growth and profitability of a firm, as they provide a complete picture of the organization. The inventory report is one.
Inventory reporting is collecting and tracking data related to a company’s inventory. It includes quantity, cost, expiration date, location, and size. The main purpose of inventory reporting is to give an accurate picture of the current condition of a business’s assets and liabilities.
It provides insight into financial performance by enabling managers to manage the supply chain and inventory levels better. Accurate reporting also ensures that businesses remain compliant with any applicable laws or regulations related to inventory management.
In business accounting, inventory refers to the items and materials that a company holds for the ultimate goal of resale. Companies must select a method for accurate inventory tracking. There are periodic and perpetual inventory accounting methods.
How you manage your inventory will directly affect your organization’s cash flow. Ineffective inventory management could put your company at a disadvantage. Stocks constitute a substantial portion of your working capital, and keeping excess inventories ties up cash.
Why Do Inventory Reports Matter?
To ensure accuracy and reliability, organizations need to have an effective system in place for inventory reporting. This should include clear rules and guidelines and an updated inventory tracking system.
Additionally, businesses should ensure that their staff is adequately trained to use the inventory reporting process to record and report all updates accurately. By adhering to these principles, companies can always ensure their stock levels are up-to-date and accurate, avoiding costly mistakes and improving overall business performance.
Different Types of Inventory Reports Used in Business
Let’s dive in deeper and look at the different types of inventory reports and which suits your business best.
Sales Report- Types of Inventory Reports
If you are an expanding firm already adopting a multi-channel connection with multiple e-commerce platforms, generating a sales report could help you obtain more accurate accounting data. Sales reports can detail all channel-specific transactions for a given period.
A comprehensive sales report will help you better see your cash balances and optimize your accounting procedures. With the assistance of a sales report, brands can examine a comprehensive accounting summary for each sales channel, including incomes, discounts, refunds, and taxes.
A great report will break down sales by date range and product category, help you identify patterns, identify your top consumers, and enhance your forecasting abilities.
Inventory Performance Report- Types of Inventory Reports
The inventory performance reports will include the details of your best- and worst-selling products and year-over-year increases. Knowing which items are selling well and which are stagnating on your shelves will help you determine how many raw materials you need to restock or replenish.
It depicts the overall picture of how your business is performing. Specifically, the inventory performance report highlights the inventory goods’ overall sales performance.
An important indicator you will encounter in an inventory performance report is the inventory turnover ratio, which illustrates in simple terms how rapidly you sold your inventory within the specified time period.
Inventory Valuation Report- Types of Inventory Reports
An inventory valuation report outlines your inventory’s potential profitability. It displays the total retail price you purchased your inventory and its potential profit value. It enables you to determine the cost of your inventory. Then, it indicates how much profit you can anticipate from selling the item.
Inventory analytics are essential for keeping track of your purchase decisions so that you may efficiently control cash flow with the worth of your inventory.
Specifically, a snapshot value report displays the entire value of your goods in each store. Then, trending value reports disaggregate data points within this total value for all your products housed in separate warehouses.
Lastly, an inventory value report summarizes a product’s performance based on its value, age, and turnover rate per facility or collectively.
Stock Levels Report- Types of Inventory Reports
The advantage of a stock levels report is dual; these calculations can monitor key levels and generate warnings for restocking. Critical values reveal the sales velocity and expected stockout dates for all items.
Restocking alerts list the inventory types that require refilling at warehouses based on inventories. Each of these factors is crucial to your continuing purchase selections and can assist in securing your income stream so that your bottom line remains stable.
Inventory Forecasting Report- Types of Inventory Reports
An inventory forecasting report aims to determine how much product you anticipate selling within a certain time to arrive at the quantity of inventory required to satisfy future customer orders. These forecasts account for historical sales statistics, planned marketing, and known external pressures to generate the most accurate predictions possible.
3 Benefits of Inventory Reporting
Whether in the manufacturing, wholesale, or retail trade, ensuring you have the appropriate inventory quantity is essential to your company’s success.
Companies can take advantage of many benefits, including improved inventory planning, tracking, and structured inventory classification, all of which contribute to their ability to grow profitably when properly reporting their inventories.
It provides improved and efficient inventory planning- Benefits of Inventory Reporting
Because inventory reports are oriented around your existing inventory levels, they indicate how much investment you have invested in your multiple goods and commodities. It may be done by comparing your inventories’ total value to your capital’s total value.
Because of this, including the data from these reports in your inventory planning is going to be of great assistance to you, furthermore, inventory reporting indicators provide companies with the in-depth data they require to improve order quantities, forecasting, budgeting, and other areas of their operations.
It creates a more structured inventory categorization- Benefits of Inventory Reporting
Inventory categorization is crucial for the supply chain and optimum inventory management to achieve optimal results. Inventory reporting may assist firms in organizing their inventory by segmenting products according to their worth, demand, operational expenses, etc.
With these categories in order, companies can evaluate their stock-keeping units (SKUs) to decide which ones are the most valuable or popular and which can be removed from their catalog.
It makes inventory tracking transparent and accountable- Benefits of Inventory Reporting
Reports on inventories are used to keep track of the inventory, which is the most significant and crucial part of any product-based business. In addition, because this reporting allows for transparent management inventory, businesses can readily guarantee that products will be in stock and that deliveries will occur on schedule.
In the same way, clear and consistent tracking enables greater inventory control. It identifies patterns and trends in sales, which in turn helps you make more accurate forecasts.
Defining Inventory Costing Methods in a Business
Methods for costing inventory are what a company needs to control and accurately record its expenses for related sales effectively. The value of a company’s inventory and the cost of goods sold (COGS) directly impact the company’s declared income and overall financial condition.
Why do many companies fail to properly value one of their most significant assets and spend so little time developing a system to do so? The maintenance of an inventory can be difficult at times, and the fact that there are many different ways to approach it makes it much more so.
Inventory costing, often known as inventory cost accounting, is how businesses assign costs to their products. These fees can include warehousing, administration, and market fluctuations. Generally accepted accounting standards (GAAP) employ standardized accounting rules to prevent corporations from overstating these costs.
Inventory costing is a technique for inventory management. Inventory control within a distribution chain helps lower total inventory expenses and determines how much goods a business should carry. This information assists businesses in determining the required margins for each product or category.
Businesses employ inventory costing strategies to track the cost of their inventories. It is crucial for several reasons, including:
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Managing inventory costs enables firms to avoid over- and under-stocking, which can result in monetary loss.
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Inventory expenses assist in determining whether or not a company is profitable
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Inventory expenses are used in financial planning to calculate the required cash. These figures are also helpful for budgeting.
Inventory Costing Methods You Should Know About
First, let’s familiarize ourselves with the inventory systems.
An inventory system is what a business uses to monitor the movement of the inventory along the distribution chain. The two inventory systems are:
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Perpetual Inventory System – Using a perpetual inventory system, the inventory and cost of goods sold accounts are continually updated with each transaction.
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Periodic Inventory System – On the other hand, the periodic inventory system periodically updates the inventory and cost of goods sold accounts.
Inventory Costing Methods For New Businesses
Small enterprises employing simple accounting methods may opt to use the perpetual inventory system approach due to its relative simplicity. It does not demand a high level of operating maturity and gives precise financials with minimal effort. However, it needs to be more relevant.
Inventory Costing Methods For Established Businesses
As a company expands, it may transition to a permanent system. This is due to two factors:
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The balance in an inventory account needs always to stay current.
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It enhances the visibility of a substantial number of inventory transactions.
It is a that is referred to as both inventory appraisal and inventory costing. It may seem similar but expressed differently. Essentially, you are assigning a monetary value to your goods. This is how the value of your inventory and the corresponding cost of goods sold is determined.
5 Most Common Inventory Costing Methods
FIFO Method (First In, First Out)- Common Inventory Costing Methods
First-in, first-out (FIFO) is the first strategy based on the premise that assets created and purchased are also sold or used first. FIFO posits that an income statement’s cost of goods sold (COGS) includes assets with the oldest costs.
When this occurs, it is necessary to match the company’s current inventory assets with those just acquired or manufactured.
LIFO Method (Last In, First Out)- Common Inventory Costing Methods
LIFO is the opposite method of FIFO and reports the most recent product costs.
Therefore, when inventory is sold, the most recent cost of an item in inventories will be collected and recorded as part of the cost of products sold on the financial statements. In addition, the residual prices in the closing inventory will be the most dated.
Average Cost Method- Common Inventory Costing Methods
The average cost method is one of the most widely used inventory costing methods. It’s straightforward: divide the total cost of purchased things by the number of items in stock.
One of the challenges of this inventory costing method is that it can become highly distorted if prices rise or fall dramatically over time. Make frequent modifications to all typical costs to get them closer to a more accurate average representing recent expenditures.
Weighted Average Cost Method (WAC Method)- Common Inventory Costing Methods
Weighted average or weighted average cost (WAC) is an inventory costing method that uses a weighted average to calculate the amount that gets into COGS and inventories. This strategy includes dividing the cost of available items by the number of available units.
Specific Identification Method- Common Inventory Costing Methods
Using the particular method of inventory costing, the actual cost of a product is affixed to a product unit that can be identified. This method is easy for corporations to adopt when acquiring and selling large inventory quantities.
Under this system, inventory units must be identified with a serial number or identification tag using a defined identification method.
All You Need To Know About Inventory: Accounting, Reporting, and Costing Methods – Conclusion
Overall, inventory accounting is an essential business operation that must be carried out by retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers alike.
Because identical products might have varying pricing at different points in time, many of these product-based organizations need help with the difficulty of attributing value to the inventory they have on hand as contrasted to the inventory they have sold.
However, during the first year of operation, firms must commit to a particular technique for calculating their inventory cost.
However, during the first year of operation, firms must commit to a particular technique for calculating their inventory cost.
As a result, businesses should seriously consider the various ways of inventory accounting to identify which technique is the most suitable for the business, not only at present but also as the firm continues to expand. A few different approaches to inventory accounting can be utilized to arrive at a value for the inventory.
Inventory Accounting Topics, Best Practices, & Considerations
All You Need To Know About Inventory: Accounting, Reporting, and Costing Methods – Further Readings
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Updated: 12/12/2023
