Tips & Tricks For Inventory Health

We get lots of questions about how to improve inventory health….here are some of our most requested tips and tricks!

Q: What should we do with really old, non-returnable obsolescence?

A: We suggest first trying to sell the parts on Dealermine, NADPE or a similar service where you can get 50 cents on the dollar for the junk parts. Likely, this won't get rid of all your bad parts, but it is worth a shot. For all those remaining parts, we recommend writing the parts off as gross or throwing away and/or donating them to a local auto school.

Q: What should we monitor the closest in our parts inventory?

A: We recommend monitoring obsolescence (parts that are 13 MNS and 13 MNR) and forced stock (parts on your shelf that have 2 or less sales in the last 12 months). You want as few parts in these categories as possible and you want to find out how they are getting into your inventory.

Q: How often should we be doing bin checks/reconciliations?

A: Ideally, every month. In our experience, most do this once a year. The more often you reconcile, the easier it is to catch GL and Inventory discrepancies before they get out of hand. It's also easier to check frequently, it can become a daunting task when done yearly.

TIP: If you have two stores of the same make, try comparing your obsolescence with parts that are actively selling at the other store and vise versa.

For example: X oil filter is obsolete at Store 1 , but is active and selling at Store 2, then you would do the transfer.

We recommend doing this as often as you can depending on how far apart the stores are.

Do you have inventory questions? Contact us!