Schools Stocktake

The key benefit of doing a stocktake is to ensure your school is charged only for the goods and services used in that financial year. 

When a stocktake has been completed for the first time the value of your stock will reduce expenditure by the same amount in the financial year, and enable you to carry the value of this stock forward into future years by an increased cumulative surplus or decreased cumulative deficit.  In following financial years, expenditure for the year will be adjusted to reflect the change in the value of stock held at the end of the following financial year.

Yes. Stocktakes are an annual year end process. It will be an ongoing requirement to do a stocktake at each year end.

If your school completed a stocktake in a previous financial year, failure to do a stocktake this year will have an impact on your budget. 

In the first year a stocktake is completed expenditure is reduced by the value of stock (as above).  In subsequent years expenditure will be adjusted for the change in stock held at the end of the financial year.  For example:

Therefore, the impact of stocktakes on your cumulative surplus deficit position will mirror the movement in stock valuations at financial year ends.

The items and categories of items on the Stock Take Portal are being taken from the iProcurement (IPROC) catalogue. 

You will also be able to add items that are not in the IPROC catalogue and therefore will not appear on the Stock Take Portal.  Details on how to do this are set out in the Schools Stocktake Guidance.

There is a section within the Stocktake Guidance ‘Preparing for your Stocktake’ that you should read in preparation for the stocktake.  It includes a recommendation that you should review the items under each category on the Stock Take Portal beforehand.  This is so the person counting the stock is familiar with the general level of detail on the system.

The package size relates to the quantity within a box e.g. one box of 50 pens gives the quantity as one. Recording the package size will assist entry on the Stock Take Portal as it will be used to identify the correct item on the list without having to return to the stock location to obtain more details.

• Each individual item of stock should be counted per the categories in the Stock Take Portal. 
• The item description (use unique identifiers where appropriate, e.g. serial numbers), number of items, unit of issue, recorded on the stock count sheet.
• Once an item has been counted this should be marked or set aside to avoid it being counted more than once.

You are not required to count:

• Any boxes/packets already opened.
• Any item that is capital expenditure (Computers and ICT expenditure > £200 and Furniture and Equipment > £1,000).
• School Library Service (SLS) Book Stock as these are already counted through the SLS book stock system.
• School of Music (SOM) Instruments as these are already counted through the School of Music system.

It is good practice to perform a sample check on the stocktake to ensure that the stock is being counted correctly and the information being recorded is consistent with what is required.  Particularly since this may be the first-time stock is being counted. 

Record the item description (use unique identifiers where appropriate, e.g. serial numbers), number of items, unit of issue. You are not required to enter a price as this will be calculated by EA.

At the end of the stocktake:

• Each stock count sheet must be signed by the staff doing the count.
• Each stock count sheet must be signed by the staff when they have entered the items on to the Stock Take Portal.
• The individual taking lead responsibility for the count should ensure that all stock, which is to be included, has been counted and should review the sheets to ensure that they are complete and free from error.
• A sample check, consisting of a full recount of ten items per the stock count sheet to verify the item description and quantity recorded, should be undertaken by someone who has not conducted the original count.  Where this second count results in a difference this should be investigated, and amended, if required.   This check and any amendments should be recorded.
• Once completed and entered on to the Stock Take Portal, stock count sheets should be retained by the school.
• EA will calculate the value of the stock input onto the Stock Take Portal and notify your school.

This depends on the numbers of areas you have to count, the amount of stock in each area and the number of people that you have available to do the count.  Schools may prefer to focus their efforts on higher value stock items.

The stocktake should be completed as close as possible to the date specified by the stocktake team.

The deadline date will be confirmed by the stocktake team.  

No. This will be completed by EA

EA will calculate the value of the stock inputted onto the Stock Take Portal and notify your school directly.

EA recognise there are competing priorities in schools for staff time. However, the EA did engage with schools in relation to the pressure on the education budget and the schools asked the EA to look at ways in which the pressures on their budgets could be alleviated.  Completing a stocktake could benefit your school’s financial position.