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Inventory Control and Maintenance - Best Practices

The Best Practice for inventory control and Maintenance includes the following:

• One person is assigned the responsibility in each department for inventory control and maintenance.
• This person attends the inventory training workshop provided each year by Inventory Control.
• All purchases, disposals, or transfers of property are reported to the responsible person as they occur.
• The responsible person keeps and updates the inventory control worksheet throughout the year.  This is the worksheet that was received the prior year from Inventory Control.  It was returned to Inventory Control with the corrected physical inventory for the department.
• All asset transfer forms, request for disposal of surplus property forms, and asset checkout forms are copied before being sent to Inventory Control or Surplus Property and kept in the department by the responsible person.  This person makes sure these forms are completed in a timely fashion when changes in inventory are reported to them.
• Each year the new worksheet received from Inventory Control for use in taking a physical inventory is compared with the updated sheet that has been maintained throughout the year.  Any discrepancies are investigated and corrected.
• During the physical inventory all items, especially computers, are examined for the correct asset tag number.  Any items physically present but not on the inventory sheet are recorded on the inventory sheet and reported to Inventory Control as present.