Setup: get the structure right once
- List every place stock legitimately sits, including each vehicle.
- Create items for what you actually stock, not the whole supplier catalogue.
- Use variants for colour, size and length instead of duplicate items.
- Set units of measure to the unit you buy and issue in.
- Record vendors with account details and the prices you actually pay.
- Enter opening quantities per location, then stop editing item totals by hand.
Daily: record the movement
- Receive deliveries against the purchase order, at the delivered quantity and real cost.
- Record van restocks as transfers, not as purchases.
- Issue material to the job that consumed it rather than to a general pile.
- Log damage and waste with a reason rather than leaving a silent gap.
- Update equipment custody when a unit changes hands.
Weekly: the twenty-minute review
- Jobs scheduled in the next seven days with material lines still marked needed.
- Items below their reorder point — order, defer, or fix the point.
- Purchase orders open past their expected delivery date.
- Equipment checked out with no return and no active job.
- Cycle count one small batch of high-value or fast-moving items.
Monthly: look for patterns, not incidents
- Adjustment reasons ranked by frequency — where is the process leaking?
- Variance by location — is one van or shelf always short?
- Material cost against estimate on closed jobs.
- Rental returns due or overdue.
- Equipment in maintenance or repair longer than expected.
Quarterly: challenge the assumptions
- Reorder points against actual usage and current supplier lead times.
- Items with no movement for a year — is that money worth holding?
- Vendor prices against what you are actually being invoiced.
- Equipment where cumulative repair cost is approaching replacement cost.
- Locations nobody uses, and locations people use that do not exist in the system.
Assign an owner to every line
Every item above should have exactly one name attached — not a department, not 'the office'. Inventory processes fail quietly and they fail at the boundary between two people who each assumed the other was handling it.
The clearest test of whether this checklist is live in your business: pick any line at random and ask who does it. If the answer takes more than three seconds, that line is not actually running.