Dead stock register format, with a filled-in example

You know the shelf. A carton you bought in the rainy season, a stack of phone cases for a model people have stopped asking for, a fan that looked like a sure thing. Every time you walk past, you tell yourself you'll deal with it. Then you don't, because nothing about it is urgent today.

Dead stock is goods you hold that have stopped selling, so the money you paid for them is stuck on the shelf. A dead stock register is the page where you write them down, decide what to do with each one, and check later whether the decision worked.

One note, because you may have landed here from a school or office search. In India, "dead stock register" also means a list of fixed assets, such as chairs, computers and generators. This article is about goods you sell.

If you only decide when you feel like it, the same items sit there for a year. A register forces three things. It puts a naira figure on the shelf. It gives each item a decision with a date. And it brings you back a month later to see what happened.

The slow-moving stock article covers the ways to clear goods. This one is the record that tells you which goods, how much money, and whether your last attempt did anything.

The format

One page a month. Rule it with these columns:

1. Item. Name and size, the way it is in your stock book.
2. Qty. How many you hold today.
3. Cost each. What you paid, including getting it to the shop.
4. Value. Qty times cost each. This is the number that gets your attention.
5. Last sale. The date of the last time one sold.
6. Days. Days since that sale. Mark it 30, 60 or 90, meaning "30 to 59", "60 to 89" or "90 and over".
7. Decision. One of five: mark down, bundle, move, return to supplier, or stop buying. Write the detail, such as "25% off".
8. Result. Left blank until next month. Then: how many sold, how many left, what came back.

The 30, 60 and 90 bands are watch points, not the definition of dead. The slow-moving stock article calls goods dead at six months. The register starts earlier on purpose, because by six months most of the chance to get your money back is gone.

A page filled in

Here is the register for a shop that sells provisions, cosmetics and phone accessories, as at 1 November. The goods and figures are made up.

Look at the total before anything else. ₦261,200 is sitting on five lines. Nobody stole it and nobody is going to find it in a count. It is just money that isn't working.

Notice also that the register isn't only for the oldest goods. The phone cases have gone 38 days without a sale, so the decision is the gentlest one: move them. The fan is the opposite. It has sat since June, so the decision includes "stop buying", which is the one that prevents the next page from looking the same.

Filling it in an hour

You don't need a stock count. You need your records and a pen.

1. Open your stock book and go through the pages, or the weekly sheet if you keep one. If you haven't got one, the stock record book format takes a day to set up and pays for itself here. Without it, walk the shelves and write down what looks dusty.
2. For each item, find the date of the last sale. In a page-per-item book it is the last "Sold" line. Anything that sold in the last 30 days stays off the register.
3. Skip what you only just bought. Goods that arrived two weeks ago haven't had a chance to sell. Leave them for next month.
4. Write the quantity and the cost. Multiply, and write the value.
5. Sort by value, biggest first. Start your decisions at the top. A ₦87,000 fan matters more than a ₦1,200 phone case, however old the case is.
6. Write one decision for each line today. Not "think about it". If you can't choose, pick the gentlest one that fits and let next month judge it.

If you are using Tabs, the dashboard's Not selling list does the finding for you. It shows up to five things on your shelf that haven't sold in 30 days, the most money tied up first, with when each last sold and what the stock is worth at cost. Stock you added in the last 30 days isn't listed. Past five, "And N more" opens Inventory on its Not selling filter. The worth at cost shows only to a role that can see costs and margins. It is ours, and it is described on the dashboard page.

The register still does the part software can't: you write what you decided and what happened.

Reviewing it next month

This is the step that makes the register worth keeping. A month later, take out last month's page and fill in the Result column for every line, using your stock book.

Here is the same page on 1 December. Again, an example.

Now you have something a feeling never gave you. The markdown on the lotion and the bundle with milk did their job, so you will use them again. Moving the cases made no difference, so next month's decision is a price cut. The fan is still stuck. It has sat for five months, and ₦72,500 of the shelf is still tied up in it. That is a line for a harder decision: cost price, or sell the five to another trader today.

Write the new page the same day, carrying over anything that is still unsold with its next decision. Items that sold out drop off. After three or four months you will see which of your decisions work for your goods, and which supplier takes returns without argument.

Habits that keep the register honest

Keep it to one page. If it grows to five, you are buying too much that doesn't sell, and that is the real problem to fix.

Do it on the same day every month, ahead of your reorder day. That way "stop buying" actually stops the next order.

Write in pen. When a result is bad, don't tidy it up. A register that records only the wins can't tell you what to change.

And be fair to whoever buys. Most dead stock was a reasonable bet that didn't land: a rep's promise, a bulk price, a season that ended early. The register is there to catch it sooner next time, not to find someone to blame.