Sample Questionnaire for Inventory Management at Retail

Sample Questionnaire for Inventory Management at Retail General: 1. Who is the manager responsible for Purchasing and Receiving? 2. How many FTEs are in the Purchasing and Receiving process 3. What percentage of suppliers transmit invoices electronically? 4. How many active suppliers are there in the supplier master file? 5. How many inactive suppliers are there in the supplier master file? Purchase Orders: 1. Is there a formal process for purchasing Inventory? 2. Is a purchase order (PO) process established? 3. If so, who enters PO’s into G/L?Is there an approval process when requesting a PO? 4. How are PO’s distributed to Approvers & then distributed to Accounting? 5. How many POs are issued each month? 6. What percentage of POs are transmitted electronically? 7. If there is no PO process, how are items ordered and approved? 8. Who can order materials? Who approves the order? System: 1. Are there any access controls in the PO Module of the system? 2. Does the inventory system directly interface with the General Ledger (G/L)? Inventory: 1. What method to you use (FIFO, LIFO, etc.)? 2. Who tracks inventory availability? 3. Who manages inventory, and how do they manage inventory surplus? 4. What happens to damaged and stolen inventory? 5. What is the process for alerting the purchasing agent that more inventory should be ordered? 6. Is there a feature within the inventory system that alerts the user if inventory levels are below or above? 7. Who has access to inventory after hours, and who locks up inventory? 8. What kind of security is maintained for the stores? Suppliers: 1. Who has access to set up suppliers? 2. Who chooses and approves new suppliers? 3. What is the process for suppliers that are no longer used? 4. Is there an approved supplier list? Receiving: 1. Does somebody match the invoice to the purchase order to the shipping document? If so, who? 2. If there is a discrepancy between amount received and amount ordered, what is the process for reco 3. What are the security controls at the warehouse where the goods are received? 4. Is the receiving area separate from the shipping area? 5. Who enters received amounts into the system? 6. Is it the same person who receives the inventory? 7. Is an approved purchase order required in order to accept shipment? Reconciliation: 1. Does anybody reconcile the open Purchase Orders at the end of a month? 2. Do you perform analytics on inventory balances between periods? 3. If so, what variation analytics are performed and who performs this? How often do you have inventory counts?