Can you believe it is almost the end of 2021 already? Wow! One of the common best practices in optometric practices is to schedule a full physical frame inventory right at the end of the year. Is this something you are already ready to do?
The objective of the year-end physical frame inventory is twofold:
1) For tax purposes – usually this count/value does not need to be super accurate, just close enough for accounting.
2) For planning purposes – this is the important one to me! How can you plan for your frame inventory needs if you don’t know what you have and what you’ve sold?
a) Ideally you are doing mini-inventories each time you make stock purchases with a rep. This is your chance during the course of the year to clean up and really understand how a line is doing and if the team is managing the frame entry and removal properly in your practice management software's inventory system.
b) Even with these mini-inventories occurring, it is best practice to take the time at least once a year (end of year is a great time) to go through the entire stock and make sure everything is literally clean on the boards (and the boards are clean themselves!) Then do an overall analysis of what changes you want to make for the next year.
c) Changes to frame inventory can take a long time! Major changes, like eliminating or adding a line might take you up to 12 months to complete. You need a real plan in place to make this happen.
There are several situations that can impact the structure of your year-end frame inventory. The biggest is, do you even have a formal frame inventory, and is it digital (WAY preferable) or is it manual (better than nothing)?
Even if you are doing manual frame inventory tracking now, there is great benefit to taking time, WITH THE PRACTICE DOORS CLOSED, to pull off all the frames, do a deep clean of your boards, check all your tags, do some re-decorating, and just get all set up for the New Year. There’s nothing like seeing all your frames out and on parade to get a good sense of what you want to change over the next 12 months.
Get it scheduled!