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5 Steps To Improve Your Valuation Experience & Results: A New White Paper From Z5

an illustration of the Z5 Piggy Bank holding coins, representing the savings that customers who download the newest white paper can achieve

Whether they happen annually, biannually, or more often, you've always got a physical inventory valuation coming up. How's your prep going for the next one?

If you're six months out from having to count everything all over again, that probably means you just finished counting (and might not even have your final valuation report yet). So the last thing you want to be thinking about is the next count. 

The bad news is: you have to start prepping immediately. The good news is: we can help with that. 

We got every Z5 Inventory department together to compile all the best advice we've gotten and given relating to the dreaded physical inventory count. We've helped with hundreds of inventories covering millions of medical and surgical supplies, so we're mostly sure that our advice is solid. Mostly. 

As of today, you can download, read, and we daresay enjoy Z5's newest white paper: "The Perfect Inventory Count 5 Steps To Improve Your Valuation Experience & Results." 

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It's 100% free and contains 100% helpful advice for: 

  • clinical staff to minimize disruption 
  • supply chain staff to capture data right the first time 
  • finance staff to speed up the audit & reporting process 

We even included some handy checklists you can print out and pin up on the group whiteboard or corkboard or bathroom door so nobody can claim that they didn't see them. Like this one! 

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But if you're not convinced yet, just wait! Here's an excerpt from Part 2 of the white paper that covers data capture. After you read it, you can decide either to commit it to your memory forever or download The Perfect Inventory Count white paper and reference the information at your convenience. 

Download The  White Paper Now

 

What about count sheets?

Do not use them.

Repeat: do not use count sheets.

Count sheets have become so baked into the typical valuation process that most healthcare supply chain and clinical staff can’t imagine an inventory without them. But they only hamper the efficiency of the count process and the post-count data roll-up. Count sheets limit the focus of the counter so that they miss unlisted product on the shelf, and they drag out the valuation process at every step.

The simple version of a count sheet is a frankensteined compilation of the last count’s data and a list of newly bought items, which comes with the drawback of being highly inaccurate to the current state of the shelf. The complicated, truest version of a count sheet is a painstaking list of every product on the shelf, but that, too, can be out-of-date by the time the shelf needs to be counted, especially in the case of physician and preference changes.

That means counters will be handwriting product data in no matter how thorough the count sheets are.

All of which says nothing of how expensive count sheets can be. Labor is not a sunk cost. A supply chain or clinical staff member who possesses enough familiarity with these medical supplies to create a count sheet is typically highly skilled and highly paid. The same is absolutely true of the supply chain experts adding in handwritten data after the counting is all done. Healthcare providers cannot afford to waste payroll on an exercise that will ultimately prove insufficient nearly one hundred percent of the time.

The ideal inventory software allows counters to record quantities for each product they find on the shelf.

No count sheet with product data is required if every scan or search in the software is pulling up product data from a central database. In addition to being more thorough, the digital count method provides the benefit of forcing managers to check that counting in each storage location is complete. Each storage location must be identified before the counting can begin, of course, but that’s a much lighter lift for supply chain and clinical staff than creating count sheets for each of them. 

 

Want more? Oh, boy, have we got the perfect solution for you. 

Download The  White Paper Now

 

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