How to do a stock take in a pharmacy, and how often

Even a careful pharmacy ends up with records that disagree with the shelf. A pack is sold without being scanned, a delivery is received short, a return goes back to the wrong place, a box is opened and half used. None of these is dramatic. Together they mean the number on the screen slowly stops being true.

The cost shows up in two places: medicine you think you have and do not, so a customer leaves without it, and medicine you do not know you have, so it sits until it expires.

There is no single right interval. A workable pattern for a community pharmacy:

• Weekly: the twenty or thirty products that sell every day, and anything that costs a lot per pack.
• Monthly: one shelf bay or one category, rotating, so the whole shop is covered every few months.
• Once or twice a year: a full count, ideally on a quiet day, as a check on the rota rather than the only count.

Counting a small part often is more accurate than counting everything rarely, because people stay careful for an hour, not for a week.

• Finish receiving any delivery first, so what is in the box is already in the system.
• Settle returns and held sales, so nothing is half done during the count.
• Count in pairs where you can: one person reads the pack and the expiry date, the other writes it down.
• Do not sell from the area being counted until it is finished.

A total of 40 for a product hides the fact that 25 of them expire next month. Record each batch with its expiry date. The count then doubles as a short-dated check, and it catches the case where the total is right but the batches are wrong.

Count opened packs and loose strips as their own line if you sell loose, and write down damaged or quarantined stock separately so it does not look like a shortage.

Recount any line that is out by a lot before you accept it. Most large differences are a miscount or a pack on the wrong shelf. For the ones that stand, find the cause before you correct the record:

• Sold but not scanned, which a pattern of small shortages on fast movers suggests.
• Delivery received short or against the wrong order.
• Stock given or used and never recorded.
• Theft or loss, which is the last explanation to reach for, not the first.

Then correct the record with a reason attached. An adjustment with a reason can be reviewed later; a silent overwrite hides the problem that caused it.

This section is about our own product. Optima has a stock count built in: you count against batches and expiry dates, see the differences, and apply adjustments that are kept in the stock movement history and audit history. Low-stock and expiry alerts help you choose which lines to count next.

It all runs on the pharmacy’s own computer. You can try it on your real stock for seven days; the trial costs nothing. For what else to ask any vendor, read the buyer’s guide.