A pallet at the back
At the stocktake, someone finds a pallet of body wash behind the newer stock, with a best-before date that is closer than anyone realised. Web orders have been picked from the front of the racking for months. A retailer's buying terms need a minimum remaining shelf life on delivery, so this pallet can no longer go to them. In the raw material store, a part-used drum of an emollient has passed its retest date because a newer drum was opened first.
Both problems were visible months ago, to anyone who looked at dates. Nobody had a way to look.
Stock by product hides the dates
Most stock systems for small manufacturers, and many spreadsheets, count stock by product. Dates exist only on the labels of the physical cases and drums.
- Finished goods are recorded as a total per product, not per batch.
- Pickers take whatever is nearest.
- Raw material drums are opened in the order they come to hand.
- Retailers' minimum shelf life rules are known but not checked when allocating stock.
- Nobody gets a warning as dates approach.
What dated stock costs
Write-offs are the obvious cost: product you made and paid for, and raw materials you bought, thrown away. Less obvious is selling off short-dated stock cheaply at the last minute, or delivering to a retailer and having it rejected. For brand clients, shipping stock with less life than agreed causes friction. What dates you put on your products, and how you manage them, is your decision with your adviser. We make sure the dates you set are followed.
Selling through several channels makes it worse. Web orders, wholesale to salons and spas, retailers with their own rules and brand clients' stock all draw from the same shelves. Each channel has a different tolerance for short dates, and a picker at the racking cannot be expected to remember them all.
Batch-level stock with date control
- Finished goods are received into stock by batch, with the date you assign, when filling completes.
- Raw materials are received by lot with their expiry or retest date, from the container label or supplier documents.
- Picking lists for web, wholesale and brand client orders direct the picker to the earliest-dated batch that meets the order's rules, and the scan at packing confirms it.
- Each customer or channel can have a minimum remaining life rule, and allocation respects it.
- Compounders are directed to the earliest-dated raw material lot when a batch record calls for an ingredient.
- A dates report lists stock approaching dates you set, early enough to plan a promotion, a clearance, or use in production.
| Situation | Stock by product | Stock by batch with dates |
|---|---|---|
| Picking | Nearest case | Earliest-dated batch that fits the order |
| Retailer shelf life rule | Remembered, sometimes | Applied when allocating |
| Raw material drums | Whichever is open | Earliest lot first |
| Approaching dates | Found at stocktake | Reported in advance |
If you sell through Shopify or run stock in a tool like Katana or Unleashed, we work with what is there, adding batch dates where it cannot hold them.
Fewer surprises at the stocktake
Stock moves in date order without anyone having to think about it. Retailer deliveries meet their shelf life rules. Short-dated stock is spotted early enough to do something sensible with it. The stocktake becomes a check, not a discovery.
The same records answer questions from brand clients about how much life is left on the stock you hold for them.
Recognise these?
- You regularly write off out-of-date finished goods.
- Raw materials pass their dates in the store.
- Stock is recorded by product, not batch.
- Retailers have rejected short-dated deliveries.
- Dates are only checked at stocktake.