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Encyclopedia > Inventory

Inventory is a list of goods and materials, or those goods and materials themselves, held available in stock by a business. Inventory are held in order to manage and hide from the customer the fact that manufacture delay is longer than delivery delay, and also to ease the effect of imperfections in the manufacturing process that lower production efficiencies if production capacity stands idle for lack of materials. A good or commodity in economics is any object or service that increases utility, directly or indirectly, not be confused with good in a moral or ethical sense (see Utilitarianism and consequentialist ethical theory). ... material is the substance or matter from which something is or can be made, or also items needed for doing or creating something. ... Wall Street, Manhattan is the location of the New York Stock Exchange and is often used as a symbol for the world of business. ...

Contents

Business inventory

The reasons for keeping stock

Wssdfsdfdsfsdfdsfdfsdt is kept that are perhaps the most interesting from another standpoint. All these stock reasons can apply to any owner or product stage.

  • Buffer stock is held in individual workstations against the possibility that the upstream workstation may be a little delayed in providing the next item for processing. Whilst some processes carry very large buffer stocks, Toyota moved to one (or a few items) and has now moved to eliminate this stock type.
  • Safety stock is held against process or machine failure in the hope/belief that the failure can be repaired before the stock runs out. This type of stock can be eliminated by programmes like Total Productive Maintenance
  • Overproduction is held because the forecast and the actual sales did not match. Making to order and JIT eliminates this stock type.
  • Lot delay stock is held because a part of the process is designed to work on a batch basis whilst only processing items individually. Therefore each item of the lot must wait for the whole lot to be processed before moving to the next workstation. This can be eliminated by single piece working or a lot size of one.
  • Demand fluctuation stock is held where production capacity is unable to flex with demand. Therefore a stock is built in times of lower utilisation to be supplied to customers when demand exceeds production capacity. This can eliminated by increasing the flexibility and capacity of a production line or reduced by moving to item level load balancing.
  • Line balance stock is held because different sub-processes in a line work at different rates. Therefore stock will accumulate after a fast sub-process or before a large lot size sub-process. Line balancing will eliminate this stock type.
  • Changeover stock is held after a sub-process that has a long setup or change-over time. This stock is then used while that change-over is happening. This stock can be eliminated by tools like SMED.

These classifications apply along the whole Supply chain not just within a facility or plant. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a concept for maintaining plants and equipment. ... Just In Time (JIT) is an inventory strategy implemented to improve the return on investment of a business by reducing in-process inventory and its associated costs. ... Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) is one of the many lean production methods for reducing waste in a manufacturing process. ... A supply chain, logistics network, or supply network is a coordinated system of organizations, people, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service in physical or virtual manner from supplier to customer. ...


It is often the work practise to hold all these stocks mixed together before or after the sub-process to which they relate. Because they are mixed-up together there is no visual reminder to operators of the adjacent sub-processes or line management of the stock which is due to a particular cause and should be a particular individual's responsibility with inevitable consequences. Some plants have centralised stock holding across sub-processes which makes the situation even more acute.


Special terms used in dealing with inventory

  • Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) is a unique combination of all the components that are assembled into the purchasable item. Therefore any change in the packaging or product is a new SKU. This level of detailled specification assists in managing inventory.
  • Stockout means running out of the inventory of an SKU.[1]
  • "New old stock" (sometimes abbreviated NOS) is a term used in business to refer to merchandise being offered for sale which was manufactured long ago but that has never been used. Such merchandise may not be produced any more, and the new old stock may represent the only market source of a particular item at the present time.

SKU is a TLA that may stand for: Stock Keeping Unit(s) Shoujo Kakumei Utena, a Japanese anime Sveriges Kommunistiska Ungdomsförbund (marxist-leninisterna) young communist league of Sweden (Marxist-Leninist) Sports Knowledge Underground Categories: TLAs ...

Inventory examples

While accountants often discuss inventory in terms of goods for sale, organizations - manufacturers, service-providers and not-for-profits - also have inventories (fixtures, furniture, supplies, ...) that they do not intend to sell. Manufacturers', distributors', and wholesalers' inventory tends to cluster in warehouses. Retailers' inventory may exist in a warehouse or in a shop or store accessible to customers. Inventories not intended for sale to customers or to clients may be held in any premises an organization uses. Stock is simply cash in disguise. If stocks are uncontrolled, you are encouraging theft. Moreover it will be impossible to know the actual level of stocks and therefore impossible to control them. Accountant, or Qualified Accountant, or Professional Accountant, or Accountancy Practitioner, is a certified accountancy and financial expert. ... Manufacturing is the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale, or intermediate processes involving the production or finishing of semi-manufactures. ... A service provider is an entity that provides services to other entities. ... A nonprofit organization (sometimes abbreviated to not-for-profit, non-profit, or NPO) is an organization whose primary objective is to support some issue or matter of private interest or public concern for non-commercial purposes. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Distribution is one of the four aspects of marketing. ... Inside Green Logistics Co. ... A drawing of a self-service store Retailing consists of the sale of goods/merchandise for personal or household consumption either from a fixed location such as a department store or kiosk, or away from a fixed location and related subordinated services (Definition of the WTO (last page). ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Drawing of a self-service store. ... A customer is someone who purchases or rents something from an individual or organisation. ... Consumers refers to individuals or households that purchase and use goods and services generated within the economy. ...


Manufacturing organizations usually divide their "goods for sale" inventory into:

  • Raw Materials - materials and components scheduled for use in making a product.
  • Work in Process, WIP - materials and components that have begun their transformation to finished goods.
  • Finished goods - goods ready for sale to customers.
  • Goods for resale.

For example: material is the substance or matter from which something is or can be made, or also items needed for doing or creating something. ... WIP or Wip can mean:- Computer users jargon for work in progress. An informal accounting term for works in progress -- WIP is an asset account used by some professional services firms (especially communication design and product design firms) to reflect revenues that have been earned but not yet billed. ... Look up Finished good in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...


Manufacturing

A canned food manufacturer's materials inventory includes the foods to be canned, empty cans and their lids (or coils of steel or aluminum for constructing those components), labels, and anything else (solder, glue, ...) that will form part of a finished can. The firm's work in process includes those materials from the time of release to the work floor until they become complete and ready for sale to wholesale or retail customers. Its finished good inventory consists of all the cans of food in its warehouse that it has manufactured and wishes to sell to food distributors (wholesalers), to grocery stores (retailers), and even perhaps to consumers through arrangements like factory stores and outlet centers. A Factory Outlet is a store where the manufacturer sells his own products to the general public without involving middlemen. ...


Logistics or distribution

The logistics chain includes the owners (wholesalers and retailers), manufacturers' agents, and transportation channels that an item passes through between initial manufacture and final purchase by a consumer. At each stage, goods belong (as assets) to the seller until the buyer accepts them. Distribution includes four components: Look up Logistics in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Consumers refers to individuals or households that purchase and use goods and services generated within the economy. ...

  1. Manufacturers' agents: Distributors who hold and transport a consignment of finished goods for manufacturers without ever owning it. Accountants refer to manufacturers' agents' inventory as "matériel" in order to differentiate it from goods for sale.
  2. Transportation: The movement of goods between owners, or between locations of a given owner. The seller owns goods in transit until the buyer accepts them. Sellers or buyers may transport goods but most transportation providers act as the agent of the owner of the goods.
  3. Wholesaling: Distributors who buy goods from manufacturers and other suppliers (farmers, fishermen, etc.) for re-sale work in the wholesale industry. A wholesaler's inventory consists of all the products in its warehouse that it has purchased from manufacturers or other suppliers. A produce-wholesaler (or distributor) may buy from distributors in other parts of the world or from local farmers. Food distributors wish to sell their inventory to grocery stores, other distributors, or possibly to consumers.
  4. Retailing: A retailer's inventory of goods for sale consists of all the products on its shelves that it has purchased from manufacturers or wholesalers. The store attempts to sell its inventory (soup, bolts, sweaters, or other goods) to consumers.

Matériel (from the French for equipment or hardware, related to the word material) is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management. ... The word transit, when used alone, has several possible meanings in English means of transport, including mass transit, rapid transit, public transit, public transport Further information: transit (transportation) in astronomy an event involving two bodies along the same line of sight Further information: astronomical transit in navigational position lines when... Wholesaling consists of the sale of goods/merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services. ... Wholesaling consists of the sale of goods/merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Drawing of a self-service store. ...

Accounting perspectives

Accounting for Inventory

Each country has its own rules about accounting for inventory; this article concentrates on economic theory, United States financial accounting rules, and Eliyahu M. Goldratt's throughput accounting. National boundaries do not limit economics, and throughput accounting functions independently of national regulations because it affects public financial reports only indirectly. It has been suggested that Accounting scholarship be merged into this article or section. ... Face-to-face trading interactions on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor. ... Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1948 - ) is an Israel-born physicist turned business consultant, the originator of the theory of constraints (abbreviation: TOC). ... Throughput accounting (TA) is an alternative to cost accounting proposed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. ... Throughput accounting (TA) is an alternative to cost accounting proposed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. ...


Organizations in the U.S. define inventory to suit their needs within Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP), the rules defined by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) (and others) and enforced by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other federal and state agencies. Inventory management affects organizations' internal operations through their cost accounting methods. Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) are the accounting rules used to prepare financial statements for publicly traded companies and many private companies in the United States. ... The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is a private, non-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in the United States (US GAAP). ... The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, commonly referred to as the SEC, is the United States governing body which has primary responsibility for overseeing the regulation of the securities industry. ... Cost accounting is the process of tracking, recording and analyzing costs associated with the products or activities of an organization. ...


While financial accounting uses standards that allow the public to compare firms, cost accounting functions internally to an organization and with much greater flexibility. A discussion of inventory from standard and theory of constraints-based (throughput) cost accounting perspective follows some examples and a discussion of inventory from a financial accounting perspective. The field of accounting that serves external decision makers, such as stockholders, suppliers, banks and government agencies See also: Management accounting field of accounting concerned with external users of a companys financial information. ... Cost accounting is the process of tracking, recording and analyzing costs associated with the products or activities of an organization. ... Theory of constraints (TOC) is an overall management philosophy that aims to continually achieve more of the goal of a system. ... In information technology, throughput is the rate at which a computer or network sends or receives data. ... Cost accounting is the process of tracking, recording and analyzing costs associated with the products or activities of an organization. ... The field of accounting that serves external decision makers, such as stockholders, suppliers, banks and government agencies See also: Management accounting field of accounting concerned with external users of a companys financial information. ...


The internal costing/valuation of inventory can be complex. Whereas in the past most enterprises ran simple one process factories, this is quite probably in the minority in the 21st century. Where 'one process' factories exist then there is a market for the goods created which establishes an independant market value for the good. Today with multi-stage process companies there is much inventory that would once have been finished goods which is now held as 'work-in-process' (WIP). This needs to be valued in the accounts but the valuation is a management decision since there is no market for the partially finished product. This somewhat arbitrary 'valuation' of WIP combined with the allocation of overheads to it has led to some unintended and undesirable results.


Financial accounting

An organization's inventory can appear a mixed blessing, since it counts as an asset on the balance sheet, but it also ties up money that might serve for other purposes and requires additional expense for its protection. Inventory may also cause significant tax expenses, depending on particular countries' laws regarding depreciation of inventory. (See Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner.) In business and accounting an asset is anything owned which can produce future economic benefit, whether in possession or by right to take possession, by a person or a group acting together, e. ... In formal bookkeeping and accounting, a balance sheet is a statement of the book value of all of the assets and liabilities (including equity) of a business or other organization or person at a particular date, such as the end of a fiscal year. ... Thor Power Tool Company v. ...


Inventory appears as a current asset on an organization's balance sheet because the organization can turn it into cash by selling it. Some organizations hold larger inventories than their operations require in order to inflate their apparent asset value and their perceived profitability.


In addition to the money tied up by acquiring inventory, inventory also brings associated costs for space, for utilities, and for insurance to cover staff to handle and protect it, fire and other disasters, obsolescence, shrinkage (theft and errors), and others. Such holding costs can mount up: between a third and a half of its acquisition value per year. Insurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss. ... In business management, holding cost is money spent to keep and maintain a stock of goods in storage. ...


Businesses that stock too little inventory cannot take advantage of large orders from customers if they cannot deliver. The conflicting objectives of cost control and customer service often pit an organization's financial and operating managers against its sales and marketing departments. Sales people, in particular, often receive commission payments, so unavailable goods may reduce their potential personal income. This conflict can be minimised by reducing production time to being near or less than customer expected delivery time. This effort, known as "Lean production" will significantly reduce working capital tied up in inventory and reduce manufacturing costs (See the Toyota Production System). Sales, or the activity of selling, forms an integral part of commercial activity. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Look up marketing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy focusing on reduction of the 7 wastes (Over-production, Waiting time, Transportation, Over-processing, Inventory, Motion and Scrap) in manufactured products. ... The Toyota Production System (TPS) (トヨタ生産方式) is the philosophy which organizes manufacturing and logistics at Toyota, including the interaction with suppliers and customers. ...


The role of a cost accountant on the 21st-century in a manufacturing organization

By helping the organization to make better decisions, the accountants can help the public sector to change in a very positive way that delivers increased value for the taxpayer’s investment. It can also help to incentivise progress and to ensure that reforms are sustainable and effective in the long term, by ensuring that success is appropriately recognized in both the formal and informal reward systems of the organization.


To say that they have a key role to play is an understatement. Finance is connected to most, if not all, of the key business processes within the organization. It should be steering the stewardship and accountability systems that ensure that the organization is conducting its business in an appropriate, ethical manner. It is critical that these foundations are firmly laid. So often they are the litmus test by which public confidence in the institution is either won or lost.


Finance should also be providing the information, analysis and advice to enable the organizations’ service managers to operate effectively. This goes beyond the traditional preoccupation with budgets – how much have we spent so far, how much have we left to spend? It is about helping the organization to better understand its own performance. That means making the connections and understanding the relationships between given inputs – the resources brought to bear – and the outputs and outcomes that they achieve. It is also about understanding and actively managing risks within the organization and its activities.


FIFO vs. LIFO accounting

When a dealer sells goods from inventory, the value of the inventory reduces by the cost of goods sold. For commodity items that one cannot track individually, accountants must choose a method to identify the nature of the sale. Two popular methods exist: FIFO and LIFO accounting (first in - first out, last in - first out). FIFO regards the first unit that arrived in inventory the first one sold. LIFO considers the last unit arriving in inventory as the first one sold. Which method an accountant selects can have a significant effect on net income and book value and, in turn, on taxation. Using LIFO accounting for inventory, a company generally reports lower net income and lower book value due to the effects of inflation. This generally results in lower taxation. Due to LIFO's potential to skew inventory value, UK GAAP and IAS have effectively banned LIFO inventory accounting. In a stack, the topmost item, which is added last, is taken out first. ... In accounting, the cost of goods sold (also, cost of sales or cost of revenue) describes the direct expenses incurred in producing a particular good for sale, including the actual cost of materials that comprise the good, and direct labor expense in putting the good in salable condition. ... Commodity is a term with distinct meanings in both business and in Marxian political economy. ... In a stack, the topmost item, which is added last, is taken out first. ... The book value of an asset or group of assets is sometimes the price at which they were originally acquired (historic cost), in many cases equal to purchase price. ... The Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in the UK, or UK GAAP, are the overall body of regulation establishing how company accounts must be prepared in the United Kingdom. ... IAS may stand for Indian Administrative Service Indicated airspeed Ideal Adsorbed Solution, thermodynamic theory of adsorption of Minka and Myers International Accounting Standards International Adsorption Society International Affairs Specialist United States Air Force Officer Program emphasizing international understanding, cultural expertise, and adaptive language skills International Atherosclerosis Society Institute for Advanced...


Standard cost accounting

Standard cost accounting uses ratios called efficiencies that compare the labor and materials actually used to produce a good with those that the same goods would have required under "standard" conditions. As long as similar actual and standard conditions obtain, few problems arise. Unfortunately, standard cost accounting methods developed about 100 years ago, when labor comprised the most important cost in manufactured goods. Standard methods continue to emphasize labor efficiency even though that resource now constitutes a (very) small part of cost in most cases. A ratio is a dimensionless, or unitless, quantity denoting an amount or magnitude of one quantity relative to another. ... Economic efficiency is a general term for the value assigned to a situation by some measure designed to capture the amount of waste or friction or other undesirable economic features present. ...


Standard cost accounting can hurt managers, workers, and firms in several ways. For example, a policy decision to increase inventory can harm a manufacturing managers' performance evaluation. Increasing inventory requires increased production, which means that processes must operate at higher rates. When (not if) something goes wrong, the process takes longer and uses more than the standard labor time. The manager appears responsible for the excess, even though s/he has no control over the production requirement or the problem. Performance evaluation is a term from the field of language testing and psychometrics. ...


In adverse economic times, firms use the same efficiencies to downsize, rightsize, or otherwise reduce their labor force. Workers laid off under those circumstances have even less control over excess inventory and cost efficiencies than their managers.


Many financial and cost accountants have agreed for many years on the desirability of replacing standard cost accounting. They have not, however, found a successor.


Theory of constraints cost accounting

Eliyahu M. Goldratt developed the theory of constraints in part to address the cost-accounting problems in what he calls the "cost world". He offers a substitute, called throughput accounting, that uses throughput (money for goods sold to customers) in place of output (goods produced that may sell or may boost inventory) and considers labor as a fixed rather than as a variable cost. He defines inventory simply as everything the organization owns that it plans to sell, including buildings, machinery, and many other things in addition to the categories listed here. Throughput accounting recognizes only one class of variable costs: the operating expenses like materials and components that vary directly with the quantity produced. Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1948 - ) is an Israel-born physicist turned business consultant, the originator of the theory of constraints (abbreviation: TOC). ... Theory of constraints (TOC) is an overall management philosophy that aims to continually achieve more of the goal of a system. ... Throughput accounting (TA) is an alternative to cost accounting proposed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. ... Image:Throughput. ... In throughput accounting, the cost accounting aspect of Theory of Constraints (TOC), operating expense is the money spent turning inventory into throughput. ...


Finished goods inventories remain balance-sheet assets, but labor efficiency ratios no longer evaluate managers and workers. Instead of an incentive to reduce labor cost, throughput accounting focuses attention on the relationships between throughput (revenue or income) on one hand and controllable operating expenses and changes in inventory on the other. Those relationships direct attention to the constraints or bottlenecks that prevent the system from producing more throughput, rather than to people - who have little or no control over their situations. In formal bookkeeping and accounting, a balance sheet is a statement of the book value of all of the assets and liabilities (including equity) of a business or other organization or person at a particular date, such as the end of a fiscal year. ... A constraint is a limitation of possibilities. ... A bottleneck is literally the neck of a glass or pottery bottle. ...


National accounts

Inventories also play an important role in national accounts and the analysis of the business cycle. Some short-term macroeconomic fluctuations are attributed to the inventory cycle. Measures of national income and output are used in economics to estimate the value of goods and services produced in an economy. ... // [edit] Introduction [edit] Definition If we were to take snapshots of an economy at different points in time, no two photos would look alike. ... Macroeconomics is the study of the entire economy in terms of the total amount of goods and services produced, total income earned, the level of employment of productive resources, and the general behavior of prices. ...


References

  1. ^ "Financial dictionary", Special Investor

See also

Manufacturing , a branch of industry, is the application of tools and a processing medium to the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale. ... Look up Trade in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Trade centers on the exchange of goods and/or services. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Distribution is one of the four aspects of marketing. ... Look up Logistics in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Wholesaling consists of the sale of goods/merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Drawing of a self-service store. ... Consignment stock is stock legally owned by one party, but held by another. ... It has been suggested that Accounting scholarship be merged into this article or section. ... Cost accounting is the process of tracking, recording and analyzing costs associated with the products or activities of an organization. ... Throughput accounting (TA) is an alternative to cost accounting proposed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. ... Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1948 - ) is an Israel-born physicist turned business consultant, the originator of the theory of constraints (abbreviation: TOC). ... This is a list of topics related to the theory of constraints. ... Just In Time (JIT) is an inventory strategy implemented to improve the return on investment of a business by reducing in-process inventory and its associated costs. ... Vendor Managed Inventory, (VMI), describes a family of business models in which the buyer of a product provides certain information to a supplier of that product and the supplier takes full responsibility for maintaining an agreed inventory of the material, usually at the buyers consumption location (usually a store). ... Economic Order Quantity (also known as the Wilson EOQ Model or simply the EOQ Model) is a model that defines the optimal quantity to order that minimizes total variable costs required to order and hold inventory. ... Operations Research, or simply OR is an interdisciplinary science which deploys scientific methods like mathematical modeling, statistics, and algorithms to decision making in complex real-world problems which are concerned with coordination and execution of the operations within an organization. ... Distressed inventory is basically any stock whos potential to be sold at the normal price has passed or will soon pass. ... New old stock (abbreviated NOS) is a term used in business to refer to merchandise being offered for sale which was manufactured long agobut never sold at retail. ...

External links


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