Statistical inventory sampling is an effective alternative to complete inventory counts for manufacturing and wholesale companies. The procedure is particularly efficient in large warehouses - in automated warehouses, it can reduce manual counting work by up to 99.9%. INVENT Xpert turns counting days into working days.

Inventory sampling is suitable for all companies with a warehouse containing at least 1,000 stock keeping units. The business must have an IT-supported inventory controlling system with items organized by type, quantity and value. This is usually an ERP or warehouse management system. A higher level of efficiency can be reached if 20% of the items in the warehouse account for about 80% of the stock value (stock phenomenon). An additional requirement for implementing the sampling procedure is highly accurate inventory data.

INFORM offers a special version of its inventory sampling solution for retailers. INVENT enables retailers to perform inventories flexibly, at a time that suits them. The dates for the stocktaking can be brought forward or moved back (in line with legal requirements) and an inventory can even be performed during normal operating hours.

The inventory sampling method carried out by INVENT requires a full stock take of a small section of the product range from each department. The remaining, far larger sections are calculated via samples. INVENT pre-determines the scope of the stock take in mathematically optimized intervals, ensuring the selection is entirely random while minimizing the counting involved. Compared to a conventional inventory count, the costs of this method are significantly lower. In practice, stocktaking times are reduced by 40 to 70%.

Inventory sampling is an effective alternative to conventional stocktaking and is officially recognized by German law. The legal foundations for this can be found in article 241 of the German Commercial Code.

At an international level, requirements and acceptance of the statistical inventory sampling results need to be clarified with individual auditors in the respective region or country. It is important to mention that this method has been formally approved by business auditors. Large auditing firms such as Ernst & Young and Price Waterhouse Cooper have for years been approving the inventory counting results provided by the INVENT Xpert system for all of our customers. It is also important to note that the mathematical core of the software system INVENT Xpert has even been certified by KPMG, and most recently, PwC.