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Inventory — guides and articles
13 articles published between June 2026 and September 2026. Where to start is below; the rest follow, newest first.
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Batch Traceability and Recall: The Forty-Eight Hour Question
One step forward and one step back sounds like two queries. In practice it is rework, blending, repacking, subcontracted operations and the samples nobody documented — and a company that cannot answer in a day answers by recalling everything.
Joinery and fabrication7 min read
You Paid for the Whole Board and Costed Only the Part You Used
Materials are 55–70% of the cost of a job in this trade, which makes yield the margin. Yet the cutting list lives on one machine, the offcut is stood against a wall with no name, and the wastage factor is the same number for every material in the building.
4 September 2026ReadTrading and distribution7 min read
Nobody Decides to Buy Dead Stock. It Is Decided One Reorder at a Time
There is no meeting at which a trading company resolves to tie up capital in stock it will never sell. There is a reorder point set three years ago, a report built from movement so an item with no movement cannot appear on it, and a phrase — we might sell it — that has never once been refused.
4 September 2026ReadTrading and distribution7 min read
A Free Zone Is a Customs Idea. A Designated Zone Is a Tax Idea. They Are Not the Same List
Companies holding stock inside a free zone routinely assume one status covers both duty and VAT. It does not. Customs status and VAT status are set by different authorities under different rules, and the same pallet can be outside one and inside the other.
4 September 2026ReadTrading and distribution7 min read
Three Letters on the Purchase Order Decide When the Stock Becomes Yours
FOB and CIF are not shipping jargon. They are the clause that sets the date your inventory rises, your payable is due, your insurance responsibility begins and your VAT is recoverable — and most trading systems record none of it until the container is physically at the door.
4 September 2026ReadJoinery and fabrication7 min read
The Shortage Was Created Eight Weeks Ago and Discovered on Cutting Day
The board is on the saw and the hinge is not in the store. Nothing went wrong that morning. The requirement existed the day the drawing was approved, and the purchase order was raised the day somebody happened to notice.
4 September 2026ReadTrading and distribution7 min read
The Margin Was Calculated on the Supplier's Price. The Cost Arrived Six Weeks Later
A purchase order carries one number. The cost of the goods it buys is assembled over the following two months out of freight, duty, clearing, handling and demurrage — and by the time the last invoice arrives, the stock has usually been sold at a price set from the first one.
4 September 2026ReadJoinery and fabrication7 min read
Three Tons of Steel Are at the Galvaniser and Nobody Knows Which Job They Own
Galvanising is always outside. Powder coat and duco usually are. The material leaves your yard, stays yours, and disappears from every stock report you own — along with the answer to whose job it belongs to and what it is worth.
4 September 2026ReadOdoo14 min read
Odoo for a UAE Trading Company: What Ships, What You Configure, What You Build
Odoo ships landed costs, consignment, dropshipping and multi-currency out of the box, and a trading company can still end up with a margin report that means nothing. The features are the easy half. The decisions they leave open are the half that decides your project.
26 August 2026ReadInventory12 min read
Batch Traceability and Recall: The Forty-Eight Hour Question
One step forward and one step back sounds like two queries. In practice it is rework, blending, repacking, subcontracted operations and the samples nobody documented — and a company that cannot answer in a day answers by recalling everything.
10 August 2026ReadInventory11 min read
Do You Need a Warehouse Management System? An Honest Test
Picks per day, active locations, whether stock is serialised, and what the current pick path costs in labour. Four numbers decide this, and for most mid-market companies in this region they decide against buying a WMS.
1 August 2026ReadManufacturing11 min read
Make-to-Order or Make-to-Stock: It Is Arithmetic, Not Preference
The choice is decided by one comparison: how long it takes you to make the thing against how long the customer will wait. Everything else — the decoupling point, the planning method, the quote you should not have given — follows from that.
18 July 2026ReadInventory12 min read
Why Your Stock Figure Is Wrong, and What Actually Fixes It
The system says 400 and the rack holds 260. The gap has causes with names, an annual count corrects none of them, and the thing that actually converges is duller and cheaper than anyone wants it to be.
4 July 2026ReadInventory12 min read
ERP for Trading and Distribution: The Margin Is in the Shipment, Not the Invoice
A trading company's profit is decided by freight, duty, clearance, demurrage, a rebate that arrives in November and a currency movement between the LC and the sale. None of it is visible on the invoice, which is why most traders manage on a number that is months out of date.
27 June 2026ReadAfter the reading
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