Pharmaceutical companies must conduct proper physical inventory counting of all medicines and medical supplies. Understanding your pharmaceutical Inventory can help you maintain regulation compliance. Moreover, it can also help to detect discrepancies and shortages in inventory. But, how do you conduct a proper pharmaceutical physical inventory counting for your company?
In this article, we will look at physical inventory in pharmaceutical companies and how to conduct an accurate count.
The benefit of physical inventory counting?
Physical inventory counting is a process that involves the physical counting and verifying of a company’s product in an inventory room. In a pharmaceutical company, this may involve physically counting the medicines and pharmaceutical supplies.
Here are the benefits of pharmaceutical physical inventory counting
- Enhance regulatory compliance—Pharmaceutical physical inventory counts give pharmaceutical companies the information they need for compliance to meet industry standards and patient needs.
- Improved customer service—Pharmaceutical physical Inventory counting can help companies maintain their inventory accurately and make medicines and medical supplies available to patients on prescription.
- Reduced wastage and holding cost—Physical inventory counts can reduce the amount of expired and outdated medication and also lower holding costs due to overstocking.
- Greater accuracy in inventory management—Physical inventory counting can give a greater accuracy when matching the actual inventory level and the actual stock at hand.
- Improve Decision Making—inventory data can help to make informed decisions on when to reorder medicine, pricing adjustments, and appropriate resource allocation.
- Detect discrepancies, shortage, and theft—Pharmacies can identify any cases of medicine theft, loss, or unauthorized access by conducting routine physical inventory counts.
- Better financial management—inventory counts can provide data needed for accurate financial reporting such as cost of products sold and tax calculations.
How to conduct a proper pharmaceutical physical inventory counting
Schedule the physical inventory counting
Depending on the type of physical count, it is important to schedule the inventory counting during a period where there is low activity to minimize disturbances to regular pharmaceutical operations. You can also assign your staff or hire a third-party physical inventory l counting service such as OFS Inventory. Third-party inventory counting services can help detect discrepancies and missing inventory. Also, they can help you prevent closing down activities, especially during peak season.
Preparation and planning
Before beginning the inventory count, make sure to clear the shipment reception area. You don’t want to unintentionally count newly received inventory that hasn’t yet been recorded into the accounting system. Similarly, if any prescriptions have been sold but not yet distributed, properly label them and place them aside. Furthermore, organize the pharmaceutical inventory in an organized way to make counting easier. To avoid confusion, group similar products together and identify them. Also, it is worth noting that It is easy to execute the inventory count after business hours to reduce confusion and guarantee the process doesn’t disrupt business operations.
Counting Procedure
Create clear counting protocols to ensure accuracy and consistency throughout the way through the process. Establish policies for keeping track of counts, resolving discrepancies, and balancing inventory records. To guarantee consistency and adherence to best standards, train personnel on these methods.
Verify Result
After documenting all records and counts, compare the results of the physical inventory counts to the current stock at hand. Examine any discrepancies and make the required corrections to any mistakes or inconsistencies. Examine the inventory count results to find trends, patterns, and places where inventory management procedures need to be improved.
Why You Should Hire a third-party physical inventory services provider
- Experience and Expertise
Physical inventory service providers have the experience and expertise to not only count inventory but are experienced in finding lost inventory, inventory organization and labeling, asset counting, and many other services.
- Cost-Effective
Hiring physical inventory services can be costly and effective when compared to in-house training of staff.
- Accuracy and reliability
Expert physical inventory services providers can help integrate cutting-edge technology like RFID inventory, which automates the collection and documentation of data to enable inventory counts in real-time.
- Regulation compliance
Pharmaceutical physical inventory services providers understand and help pharmacies to comply with industry standards and regulations.
Are you looking to hire physical inventory services for your pharmaceutical company? OFS Inventory makes inventory offers the best pharmaceutical Inventory counting.
OFS Inventory is a third-party firm that can assist your pharmaceutical company with inventory counts. With many years of experience and expertise in inventory counts, OFS Inventory also offers inventory organization and labeling, asset counting, RFID inventory, and 3PL warehousing services