Your first year: a 12-month counting calendar

Anyone who has just opened a shop, or finally decided to sort out their records, usually wants to start everything at once: the list, the codes, a program, weekly counts. Two or three weeks later the energy runs out, the notebook slides to the edge of the shelf and everything goes back to how it was. A different approach works better: one goal per month. Twelve small steps will leave you with a system that really runs by the end of the year, and it takes only about half an hour a week.

Why one goal a month

A new habit settles in after several weeks of repetition, not in a day. Introduce five novelties in one month and not one of them sticks. The steps also depend on each other: you cannot count an item that has no name or code, and there is no point comparing balances until receipts and issues are being written down. So the order matters: first the foundation, then control, and analysis last.

The calendar starts not in January but in the month you begin. Whenever you start, month one is yours.

Twelve months: what and when

1. The list. Write down all your stock once: name, unit of measure, location. One shelf a day.
2. Codes and names. Give every item a short code and always write one product under one name.
3. The habit of recording receipts and issues. Every delivery and every sale is written down the same day. The aim this month is not perfection but daily entries.
4. Weekly count. On Monday count your 10–15 best sellers and compare them with the notebook.
5. Prices. Purchase price, selling price and the gap between them for every item.
6. Minimum stock. For each fast mover, the number at which you say: "below this, I order".
7. Slow movers. Pick out whatever has not moved for three months and mark the goods with an expiry date separately.
8. Season plan. Holidays, the school season, the wedding season: note in the calendar how many weeks ahead to count and order for each.
9. Monthly count by zone. Each month count one zone of the shop or warehouse in full; in four to six months you will have checked the whole place.
10. Returns, breakage and gifts get their own columns for entries.
11. Analysis. The 20 items that brought in the most income, and the goods in which money is stuck.
12. The annual count. A full stock-take, a comparison with the first list and a plan for next year.

By the end of the year you hold something concrete: a full list with codes, a price table, a minimum stock for every fast mover, a holiday calendar, a notebook of shortage causes and the annual count result. In year two you only keep it current.

How much time a week it takes

Take a shop with 250 items. Building the list takes about a minute per item, a little over four hours in all, or 20 minutes a day for two weeks. In months two and three the entries take 5–10 minutes a day. From month four the weekly count takes 10–15 minutes and the monthly zone count an hour or two. The heaviest month is the first; after that the load falls and stays under an hour a week.

What to do if the schedule slips

Sometimes a month gets busy and you cannot complete the step. Do not jump to the next month and do not start everything from scratch: repeat that month. If month three is not done there is no point moving on to month four, because the weekly count would have nothing to compare against. The end of the schedule is not the twelfth month but twelve completed steps. Whether you finish in five months or in eighteen, the result is the same.

Common mistakes:

• starting every step in the first week;
• dragging out the list until month four in pursuit of perfection;
• writing a product's name differently each time;
• putting off the annual count "until later".

Conclusion

The first year builds not a perfect system but habits that suit your own business. By the end, whether it is a notebook, Excel or a program, you can state your balance with confidence. The final count can also be handed to specialists: the Sanab team counts the goods, hands over the result in a clear report and gives you an exact starting figure for the following year.