Count the stock before the shutter opens
A full godown count fails because it tries to do a month of truth in one Sunday. A small count, done often, is the one that sticks.
Stock looks fine until someone asks for the last carton and it is not there. The system still shows twelve. The shelf shows four. The difference is usually not theft. It is a return that was never posted, a sample that left in a bag, or a purchase that arrived and was sold before anyone typed it in.
A yearly count is a confession. It tells you the year was wrong. It does not tell you which week. By then the cost of the missing goods is mixed into every margin you thought you made.
Count a shelf, not the building
Pick one category, or one rack, before the shop opens. Count what is physically there. Compare it with the book quantity for that branch, not with a number someone remembers from the other shop. Write the difference as an adjustment with a reason: damage, sample, count correction. A reason is what lets you see the pattern next month.
If you adjust without a reason, you will do it again, and the books will learn nothing.
The book quantity is a claim. The shelf is the evidence. One of them has to move, and you should know which.
Samples are stock
A sample that leaves the shop is not a favor floating outside the system. It is quantity out. If it comes back, it is quantity in. Dealers who treat samples as "just a piece" discover the piece was the difference on the item they were sure they had.
The same is true of a purchase still sitting in the vehicle. Until it is received, it is not stock you can sell, and it should not be stock you can promise.
Set the alert where you actually reorder
A minimum alert of zero is a way of saying you like surprises. Set the alert at the quantity that still gives you time to call the supplier, not at the quantity where the shelf is already empty. Then look at the low-stock list in the morning, not after a customer has waited.
Twenty minutes on one shelf, three mornings a week, will beat a locked Sunday with a clipboard and a bad temper. The adjustment is small. The trust in the number is the thing you are building.
