If you own a warehouse that you rent out, commercial or residential, you are going to want to incorporate an effective warehouse inventory procedure and system into your business model. This article is designed to go over the basic concepts of commercial/residential warehouse inventories and their requirements. This is a stand alone article and is designed to address a few questions that sometimes come up with new warehouse landlords. It isn’t meant as a replacement for a professional inventory clerk or the work of an inventory clerk.
The warehouse inventory
The most basic form of inventory is the warehouse, or garage/office inventory. This includes a listing of the office supplies, general inventory of office equipment, additional key inventory, and a final section where any parts or subcomp equipment are noted.
Some types of basic inventory forms include:
·triplex inventory·side-by-side inventory·basement inventory
The inventory clerk
Inventories can be made by a tenant for their own benefit or can be made by the landlord for their own benefit. In many cases the landlord will hire a professional inventory clerk. A common place to find inventory clerks is through the local office supply. Additionally, many warehouses and office supply stores will have onsite inventory clerks.
Before you have a tenant, the first thing you will want to have is a Form Introduction detailing what types of inventory items will be included. This will be the hardest part of the process. However, once the tenant has the form the next thing you will want to have is a Form Table detailing all the inventory items in the rental. This is a double-edged sword. The Form Table is there to protect the inventory clerk. On the other hand, the Form Table is only valuable to you once you’ve finished the inventory and it becomes time to ready the space for new tenants.
Once you have these forms you want to have a Form Label Architect, a Form Builder, and a Form Range Listing all in one form. Having multiple forms is pointless because you will want to compare all of the field values on one form, not spread the inventory over hundreds of pages.
The Form Builder will calculate the field codes. The Form Builder will build a plan for each room in the warehouse and create the field codes for each room. All of the fields should be filled out and signed off once the Form Builder is complete.
The Form Range Listing will take all of the inventory entries and summary everything that will be moved into the warehouse. The final part of the form is where the Form Range Clause is included with the dot inspection. This clause essentially states that you will not take any inventory items from the warehouse that you don’t intend to move into the warehouse. I find that this is the most important part of the form because sometimes, they will allow you to move an item into the warehouse that you should not have been allowed to. Make sure you don’t ask permission to move a wanted item into the warehouse. You just too can get the Form Range Clause audited on the office file.
Once the form has been completed by the inventory clerk, and the tenant signed off on it, the next big thing is to actually order the inventory. Your warehouse company will send out a form to each tenant with a request that inventory be taken. These requests are on a daily basis and are based on inventory lists that they are going to have. Due to the demand for space, how many inventory workers they need, what their current inventory is, how many items they need, etc. your warehouse will have a large inventory as your business expands and when your tenant requests a larger inventory.
The warehouse will order the inventory based on the current requested inventory and the actual inventory that they will have when the day of possession arrives. Typically the inventory will be shipped to the warehouse the same day it comes out safe and sound, usually in 2 business days. The warehouse will keep a log of inventory received and warehouses will keep track inventory on file.
That’s about it, creating an inventory for a commercial warehouse is just the first stage in the process. You need to make sure that your inventory occurs and as accurately as possible for all of the business you rent out. My inventory checklist will include a few items that are optional:
· Inventory Clerk’s Note: This is not required, but if you have a fairly accurate inventory and you don’t need to ship inventory, I would include a note referring to your inventory. This note can be different if one company is going to operate with two different inventory systems and ten different inventories should be included on each file. This is only required if you will be shipping inventory as you increase the number of tenants.
· Log Template: You can include a log template with your inventory. Log templates are used because each office is its own separate system and each system has to have a unique log entry for each item in the office.