The stock count that never matches
An order for twenty desk phones and a couple of conference units comes in. The stock sheet says there are thirty on the shelf. There are twelve. Some went out with an engineer for a job last week and three came back unused, but they are in the boot of his car. Four were sent as replacements for faulty units, and the faulty ones are sitting in a box waiting to be returned to the distributor. Two were lent to a customer while their order was delayed.
Mobiles are worse. Handsets arrive from the distributor against a connection, sit in the office until the customer's SIMs are ready, and sometimes go out as a like-for-like swap for a broken phone without anyone updating which serial is with which user.
So you order more stock to be safe, and the shelf fills with the wrong models.
Why handsets are hard to count
A handset is not a box of screws. Each one has a serial number, a MAC address for provisioning, sometimes an IMEI, and it matters which customer and which user it ends up with.
- Stock moves in several directions: in from distributors, out to jobs, back from jobs, out as loans, back as faults, off to repair or return.
- Engineers carry stock on the road, and their car is a stock location nobody counts.
- Provisioning needs the MAC address against the customer's account on your hosted platform, which is often typed in by hand from the box label.
- Handsets sold outright, rented, and supplied free on a contract all need recording differently.
- Faulty units have a return deadline with the distributor that is easy to miss.
Where the losses turn up
| Gap | Result |
|---|---|
| Phone installed but not recorded | Rental never billed, or asset never charged |
| Loan handset never recovered | Stock written off quietly |
| Faulty unit not returned in time | Credit from the distributor lost |
| MAC typed wrongly | Phone does not provision, second site visit |
| Over-ordering to be safe | Cash tied up in old models |
Each of these is small on its own. Together they are money sitting on shelves, in vans and in customers' cupboards, and time spent by engineers standing on site with a phone that will not register.
How we track handsets from delivery to desk
- Goods in: each handset is scanned by barcode on arrival, capturing serial and MAC address from the label, against the distributor's delivery note.
- Every location is a stock location, including each engineer's vehicle, so a handset leaving the office is booked out to a person, not to 'out'.
- When a job is completed, the engineer's app records which serials were installed at which site, and the rest go back to their van stock.
- Installed handsets are linked to the customer account, and the MAC address is passed to your hosted platform for provisioning where it offers an API, so nobody retypes it.
- Loans and faults get a due date: a loan back from the customer, a fault back to the distributor within their returns window.
- Reorder points are set per model, based on what actually goes out, and warn you before the shelf runs out or fills with slow movers.
Engineers need to use it on a phone in a comms cupboard, so the app is built for that: large buttons, scan first, type rarely.
A normal day with it in place
Before an engineer leaves, the job shows which handsets are needed and which ones are already in their car. On site, scanning each phone as it goes on the desk links it to the customer and starts provisioning. Back at the office, a quick look shows what is overdue: three loans out, one fault box due back to the distributor this week.
Month end, the stock value is a report rather than a Saturday morning count. And when a customer queries whether they rent or own the phones on their desks, the answer is on the account.
Recognise any of these?
- Your stock sheet and your shelf disagree most weeks.
- Engineers keep a private stash of handsets in their cars.
- MAC addresses are typed from the box when provisioning.
- Faulty handsets miss their return window with the distributor.
- You are not sure every rented handset is being billed.