Tracking Loss
Accounting for inventory shrinkage
Joe Barlow avatar
Written by Joe Barlow
Updated over a week ago

There are a couple of ways to correctly account for damaged, wasted, expired, spoiled, stolen, or otherwise "lost" inventory. Each industry will have a different preferred term, but no matter what you call them, we've got a few different ways of handling them.


Option 1 - Using Stocktakes

Stocktakes are a great tool that can be used to reconcile and get your inventory up to date. Our Suggestion - try using the Custom Reason by clicking 'New' next to 'Reason' and marking it accordingly as a loss for your records! Examples for new reasons could be "Expired Goods," "Spoilage" or "Theft," so you can accurately keep tabs.

This method will also be tracked on the Inventory Change Report (under the "Removed" column) or on the Stocktake Discrepancy Report.

Option 2 - The Manual Adjustment

You also have the option to simply edit the quantities (via Actions -> Edit on the inventory page) and add a note explaining the loss.

This method will track the losses directly on the Inventory Change Report (just check the "Removed" column).

Option 3 - The Discount

To track loss as part of your sales, we recommend running the products through the point of sale as a "sale" with a 100% discount.

In this approach, the losses are tracked in your Discount Report and the inventory is accurately decremented.


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