Multi-location inventory management: a practical guide

One catalogue for everyone, stock counted per location

The foundation is simple: a product exists once, but its quantity exists per place. When every branch uses the same product with the same barcode, name and unit, you can compare branches, move stock between them and add up totals without translating one shop's list into another's. What changes from branch to branch is the quantity, and often the reorder level, the supplier and sometimes the cost.

• Treat a warehouse as a location with its own stock, just like a shop.
• Agree on naming and units before adding products, so a carton in one branch is not a single unit in another.
• Separate what is on hand from what is already promised to an order, so staff know what they can really sell.

Move stock between branches with a record

A box carried from one shop to another without a record makes both counts wrong: one branch looks short, the other has stock it does not know about. Record a transfer every time, even for a few units, so the quantity leaves one location and arrives at the other in the same system.

• Use a transfer, never a pair of adjustments, to move stock between locations.
• Have the receiving branch check what physically arrived.
• Look at slow sellers in one branch before ordering the same item for another.

Set reorder levels and receive orders branch by branch

A busy branch and a small one should not share the same reorder level. Set it per location from what each one actually sells and how long its supplier takes to deliver. Then place purchase orders for the branch that needs the stock and receive them there, so quantity and cost update where the goods really are. If a delivery comes in parts, receive each part as it arrives.

Count a little often, and give every adjustment a reason

Cycle counting means counting a small group of products on a regular schedule rather than closing for a full count. Count your fastest-selling and most valuable items more often, and the rest on rotation. When the shelf and the system disagree, correct it with an adjustment and a clear reason — damaged, expired, theft, counting error — so differences can be explained later instead of disappearing.

• Count at a quiet time, before sales start or after closing.
• Have someone other than the person who received the goods do the count.
• Watch for reasons that repeat in one branch; they point to a process worth fixing.

Read the movement history and decide who sees cost

When a number looks wrong, the movement history answers it: every sale, delivery, transfer, adjustment and count for that product at that branch, in order, with who did it. Read it before correcting anything. Decide too who needs to see cost and inventory value. Cashiers need availability, not margins; owners and the people who buy need cost.

A weekly routine that keeps every branch accurate

1. Open each branch's low-stock list and decide: transfer from another location, or order.
2. Place purchase orders per branch and receive any deliveries that arrived.
3. Run this week's cycle count in each branch and post the differences with reasons.
4. Review the week's adjustments by branch and ask about any that look unusual.
5. Check items that sit still in one branch and sell well in another, and move them.
6. Adjust reorder levels where a branch ran out or kept too much.

Questions owners ask