At this point we haven’t had a thorough stocktake at the office for the longest time but no 1 at the management level seemed to worry much about it; However, a recent asset audit revealed a rather stressful trend at the office.
My business trades in household equipment so chances of disfigurement, theft, and inventory misappropriation is high, but when the external audit team arrived, they started with the most sensitive department of the business – the store.
As a large part of the internal audit team, I was tasked with overseeing that the audit of the heating and cooling equipment went on smoothly. When I presented the audit team with the inventory register, they started by identifying every item 1 by 1. I had to be on standby to deliver an explanation about stock swings for most items such as the washable filter, wireless thermostat, water boiler, and air purification system; Larger items like the oil oil furnace and propane boiler were only supplied on demand. All seemed well documented except for state of the art Heating and A/C systems that were supplied a few weeks back. When the a/c supplier couldn’t explain the stock movement for equipment and parts he uses for a/c repair service, Heating and A/C repair and air duct cleaning, the audit traced gaps all the way to the a/c dealer, and the severity of the matter grabbed the attention of the directors who suggested an explanation of how internal controls are implemented to capture movement of all incoming and outgoing gear. When the final audit revealed that at least parts of the quality a/c equipment went missing with all of the requisitions, both the supplier and the storekeeper were dismissed. Internal controls have since been tightened and measures taken have resulted in better inventory management.