When taking care of patients in a busy practice, inventory is the last thing a veterinarian should have to worry about. However, when supplies are not monitored or managed properly, situations such as running out of hand sanitizer, having to use 20mL syringes because the 1mL supply is empty, or losing monthly sales because the on-hand stock of specific kibble blends have expired may occur. More than just a source of aggravation, these types of situations prove costly to the clinic when items have to be rush ordered and retail sales are lost.

Proper Inventory Management

Inventory management not only entails knowing when to reorder supplies, but also requires giving certain considerations to the items already stored within the clinic. Properly controlling supplies involves steps such as:

• Monitoring the shelf life and expiration dates of items
• Rotating stock in order to decrease the chance for waste.

When inventory is not properly managed, situations such as the following arise:

• Newly received supplies often get used first
• Older inventory remains on the shelf which causes a monetary loss when items go beyond their expiration date and can’t be used.

The following five points identify additional practices that often add to the complexity of tracking a clinic’s inventory and may be useful when contemplating the inventory management procedures for your clinic.

Inventory Management Considerations

Lack of Defined Procedures
In order to properly manage the inventory of a business, a protocol needs to be outlined to establish the way supplies are:

• Requested
• Requisitioned
• Received
• Stocked
• Monitored

Use of a Need to Order List
In some clinics, when a stocked item is getting low, the item is placed on a “need to order” list

• List items can be added on by any staff member, and the list can include any items used within the clinic
• When clinics only use a “need to order” list, the procedure causes problems with inventory management because the items on the list end up being ordered without regard to their actual usage patterns.

Good Intentions
In order to ensure that certain items are always available, the practice of hiding back stock sometimes occurs. Keeping a secret supply as an emergency may seem like a good practice, but it adds to the difficulty of tracking the actual numbers of the item in question.
Location
When not given appropriate consideration, the location of supplies can make inventory management difficult. On one hand, having supplies in areas where they are needed and can be quickly accessed is a good idea. However, when supplies are placed on the basis of convenience, they end up scattered all over the clinic which makes inventory management very difficult to maintain.
Shared Responsibilities
It is recommended to have only one person in charge of handling all of the inventory management procedures. When one person has the responsibility and performs the job as needed, it is found that they:

• Often develop a clearer understanding of the use of supplies
• Save the clinic money by reducing the amount of inventory that expires, remains in a stockpile unused, or that should not have been ordered in the first place
• Streamline the efficiency of:
• Staff requests and clinic needs
• Monitoring stock of supplies so as to complete requisition orders
• Monitoring orders received and then re-stocking supplies

A veterinary clinic needs to be able to run efficiently with minimal monetary loss. In order to help the business succeed, steps can be taken that develop a strategy for properly managing clinic inventory.

If interested in other tips involving the efficient running of your practice, please contact your Covetrus representative at 855.724.3461.

Sources:

http://www.slideshare.net/JimHansbauer/veterinary-inventory-management-why-inventory-management-is-important
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/improve-inventory-management-control-40614.html 

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