Count commission and order: what local accounting expects

Anyone who runs a warehouse in Uzbekistan knows the routine: management issues an order (in Russian "приказ") for the stock count, appoints a count commission, and at the end the commission signs the result lists. Head office in Germany, by contrast, knows count instructions, count teams and an inventory record. Both are answers to the same question, but with different paperwork. This article shows how to combine the two without counting the warehouse twice. What forms, deadlines and staffing are required locally is something to clarify with your chief accountant and your legal adviser. Here we deal with practice, not with regulations.

Two models side by side

• The local model: management orders the count in writing and fixes the period and the warehouse. A commission of management, accounting and other staff carries out or supervises the count. The persons responsible for the warehouse confirm beforehand that all documents have been handed in, and the results are entered in a statement that the commission signs.
• The German model: approved count instructions regulate the procedure. Independent count teams count blind, a second team counts again, and numbered sheets together with a record document the procedure.

Local accounting expects an order and a commission; head office and the auditor expect count instructions, a second count and traceable sheets. Anyone who delivers only one of the two gets questions from the other side.

How the two can be combined

The idea: the commission forms the frame, and the count teams carry out the count.

• The order names the warehouse, the period and the commission members, and refers to the count instructions as an annex.
• The commission bears responsibility for the overall result and appoints the count teams. A commission member does not have to count personally.
• The count teams count according to the count instructions and sign their sheets.
• The commission's result statement is produced from the difference list and the inventory record, not rewritten by hand.
• The commission approves the difference list before any correcting entries are made.

This produces one count and two layers of paperwork that refer to each other.

A fictional example of the staffing

The commission has five members: the finance manager as chair, the chief accountant, the warehouse manager (who does not take part in the counting), a representative from another department and the count manager. Counting is done by six teams of two, so twelve counters: eight from the office and sales, four from outside (8 + 4 = 12). The second count is done by teams that did not carry out the first count of that zone. In this way commission, segregation of duties and independence are visible in a single overview.

The order of the documents

1. Management order with period and commission, for example two weeks before the count.
2. Approval of the count instructions, attached as an annex to the order.
3. Declaration by the persons responsible for the warehouse on the document cut-off at the cut-off time.
4. Count sheets with issue log.
5. Difference list, approved by the commission.
6. Inventory record and result statement, signed.

Typical points of friction

• The commission wants sheets with the book stock, head office wants blind sheets. Solution: count blind, and compare with the book stock afterwards in the difference list.
• Commission members count and check their own figures at the same time. Solution: separate counting and approval by person.
• Two rounds of signatures cost time. Solution: collect signatures where they are required anyway instead of keeping paper twice.
• The language changes from document to document. Solution: fix the working language for each document beforehand.

Most of these points can be settled in a short conversation between the chief accountant, the count manager and the warehouse management before the first document is drawn up. What matters is that in the end there is one shared schedule and not two separate ones.

In short

Order and count instructions do not contradict each other, they complement each other. AuditMaster works with count instructions, count teams and a second count and delivers documents that can be taken over into the result statement of your commission. How the commission is staffed is something you decide together with your accounting department.