For my job I work with an electronics recycler. He collects old electronics people don't want anymore and I take them and sell them on ebay/craigslist. I've been doing this for about a year now and it's been going well but as i've been selling more for him, the need for more structure is needed.

When I started working there i would just take everything and write it down that i was taking it from his place. Then when i sold it i would mark down on a ------sheet that I sold it and how much it sold for.

Now, his accountants are freaking out because they can't tell very well what I have and all of that. This is mostly because I get a bunch of things whole from him and then I sell them parted out. (take a laptop and sell it as memory, battery, motherboard, and screen). They can't really tell what all I have that is waiting to sell and just overall the entire inventory system is all fucked up.

right now i write down what i take from his place and then keep another ------sheet of what sells. then I have to go back and match up the two sheets and mark down what was split up and what was returned and all that. It's extremely inefficient and a overall pain in the ***.

Any ideas for how to maintain inventory better?

 

Make up part numbers and keep inventory that way.Consider a laptop for parts a stock order and record how much you paid.

 

definately setup part numbers for every part you sell.. maybe look at inventory software packages, we use wallace here, its aight. i think the whole accounting package was around ~$10,000 though.

 

i'll try out the part numbers. I would love to try a inventory program but this is no where near big enough to make it worth buying one.

 

when you tear apart something, make notes of what you took out of it to sell and staple it all to the work order of whatever it was you tore apart. then record what as sold and how much. staples are a great cheap alternative to that $10000 dollar system.

 

Part number is a must, Part number with date and a imaginary cost is best

 

Part numbers sound good, but I would seriously hate having to make a new part number for every single part you go through. I suppose it depends on how much you generalize the parts (ie if you decide to do a part number per memory stick, or one for each size, or for one and each size and speed, or one for each brand/size/speed).

Sounds like a pain in the ***, good luck. I did inventory control for the CDMA Wireless parts at LG Electronics, thousands and thousands of parts, but it was all in a computer system and had their own predetermined part numbers.

 

Start using a VIN style system instead of just some random number for this and that. Like the first 3 letters represent the brand, then have a code for the next 3 characters representing type, etc.