If you are losing merchandise and you aren’t quite sure where it is going, perpetual item audits or counts could help you monitor your high risk items. Merchandise audits are one of the best ways to track merchandise quickly identify what, and how much you are losing. These audits can be used for any type of merchandise, but should be a part of your overall bottle security plan for your establishment if you own or manage a bar or liquor store.
Putting bottle locks on liquor bottles is a great way to deter theft, but you also want to take extra measures that allow you to keep track of key items. I have used these audits for years with great success. One tip I can give you is that you should not be doing them from your office. You may laugh, but I have heard of people not taking the audits seriously and doing them from memory or pencil whipping the form, which does you absolutely no good and you might as well not do them at all if that is going to happen. Yes, they can sometimes be tedious if you are counting a lot if items, but it will pay off in the end. You don’t have to monitor everything in the store with this log, just items that you feel need the extra attention. Start off by picking a small list of maybe about ten items that you can keep an eye on and go from there.
The idea is to keep an ongoing inventory of these items at all times. You can set the times that you complete the audit, but make sure it’s completed once a day at very least. I usually count merchandise two to three times a day, because that narrows the time of loss down a little better that only once. Completing the counts at least twice a day will save you hours of video review if you find that you are missing merchandise during the audit. Once you complete the audits on a regular basis, you will know exactly what you are missing at all times. You can then take this information and use it to beef up you bottle security strategy. In fact, this will allow you to see how well the bottle locks you put on the liquor bottles are working.
What I have done when creating an audit log is type all of the information into a spreadsheet on the computer. Then I print it out and take it to the sales floor and start counting. If you must, you can just use a pen and paper to complete the counts. The advantage to putting the information into a spreadsheet is that you can save the form and update the counts in the computer after you complete the log. Some fields you’ll want to have on the log are the date, time, item description, item number or SKU, quantity counted, previous quantity counted, variance, notes, the name of the person who is completing the log, and also include counts that your system keeps if applicable.
Although this may sound like a lot of work, it’s really not that difficult. The more you do it, the faster you will get at completing the form. Just don’t get too fast, or you might wind up miscounting the merchandise.
For more information contact us: (bottle security) or call 1.770.426.0547
If you are losing merchandise and you aren’t quite sure where it is going, perpetual item audits or counts could help you monitor your high risk items. Merchandise audits are one of the best ways to track merchandise quickly identify what, and how much you are losing. These audits can be used for any type of merchandise, but should be a part of your overall bottle security plan for your establishment if you own or manage a bar or liquor store.
Putting Bottle Loks on liquor bottles is a great way to deter theft, but you also want to take extra measures that allow you to keep track of key items. I have used these audits for years with great success. One tip I can give you is that you should not be doing them from your office. You may laugh, but I have heard of people not taking the audits seriously and doing them from memory or pencil whipping the form, which does you absolutely no good and you might as well not do them at all if that is going to happen. Yes, they can sometimes be tedious if you are counting a lot if items, but it will pay off in the end. You don’t have to monitor everything in the store with this log, just items that you feel need the extra attention. Start off by picking a small list of maybe about ten items that you can keep an eye on and go from there.
The idea is to keep an ongoing inventory of these items at all times. You can set the times that you complete the audit, but make sure it’s completed once a day at very least. I usually count merchandise two to three times a day, because that narrows the time of loss down a little better that only once. Completing the counts at least twice a day will save you hours of video review if you find that you are missing merchandise during the audit. Once you complete the audits on a regular basis, you will know exactly what you are missing at all times. You can then take this information and use it to beef up you bottle security strategy. In fact, this will allow you to see how well the Bottle Loks you put on the liquor bottles are working.
What I have done when creating an audit log is type all of the information into a spreadsheet on the computer. Then I print it out and take it to the sales floor and start counting. If you must, you can just use a pen and paper to complete the counts. The advantage to putting the information into a spreadsheet is that you can save the form and update the counts in the computer after you complete the log. Some fields you’ll want to have on the log are the date, time, item description, item number or SKU, quantity counted, previous quantity counted, variance, notes, the name of the person who is completing the log, and also include counts that your system keeps if applicable.
Although this may sound like a lot of work, it’s really not that difficult. The more you do it, the faster you will get at completing the form. Just don’t get too fast, or you might wind up miscounting the merchandise.
For more information contact us: (bottle security) or call 1.770.426.0547
