Inventory

“ In this section— (1) “inventory” means personal property leased or furnished, held for sale or lease, or to be furnished under a contract for service, raw materials, work in process, or materials used or consumed in a business, including farm products such as crops or livestock, held for sale or lease ”

“ Take, for instance, an employing manufacturer who is engaged in turning raw material into finished products—cotton into cloth, iron into hardware, leather into boots, or so on, as may be, and who pays his hands, as is generally the case, once a week. Make an exact inventory of his capital on Monday morning before the beginning of work, and it will consist of his buildings, machinery, raw materials, money on hand, and finished products in stock. ”

“ The term "goods held in inventory" as used herein means goods or products which have been given new shapes, qualities, or combinations through some artificial process and does not include raw materials such as natural gas, crude oil, sulphur, or timber or goods or products held for sale to consumers. ”

“ Making the Inventories.—Office inspection, or the preparation of inventories, was assigned to parties usually of one or two experienced men with from two to four younger engineers as assistants in the computing-room. These men went to the general offices of the railroad companies and made a complete examination of maps, profiles, bridge and building records, records of motive power, rolling stock, etc. In short, they prepared, as far as it was possible to do so, a complete inventory of every building, structure, or piece of property owned by the road ”

“ So, when goods are returned by a customer, the increase of the asset Merchandise will be shown at the end of the fiscal period when the merchandise inventory is taken, and no other record than that indicated is necessary. ”

“ The inventory of a farmer’s stock of the same date and place (Montauban, 1345) contains four kneading-troughs, a large funnel, one winepress with screws, four tuns, eight casks, three barrels, and two kegs; a lead alembic for distilling, a cauldron, two metal water-jugs, cooking utensils; two wool-cards, three carding-combs for hemp, two spades, two flails, three reaping-hooks, one scythe, one crossbar, two carpenters’ benches and tools, one shovel, two iron goads; a cart and harness; two oxen, one horse, one ass, two pigs, two sows, and a swarm of bees. ”

“ An actual physical inventory is taken at the terminating date of each month or period, making a record of the items of every nature on hand that is a liquid asset and not usually including interests which are charged off as an item of expense. ”

“ Inventory books are intended to furnish a complete record of all the library property, showing when, from whom, and at what cost every item of [44] furniture, fitting, stationery, &c., was procured. It can be kept in a specially ruled book, or in a faint ruled folio, classified to show the different kinds of supplies. When re-ordering or reckoning up the duration of supplies, this book will be found of the greatest use. As a record of prices it is also valuable. ”

“ The only difficulty lies in my ignorance of the forms, the ceremonial. But I am adaptable, and learn quickly. It occurs to me that, having placed all that I own at your disposal, it is meet for me to retire to the kitchen, while you take stock of the premises. An inventory will not fatigue you. ”

“ Inventory Methods. The careful organization of the physical stock to be inventoried, sorting any misplaced items, and separating them into classes, and an equally careful organization of the clerical force, acting under explicit directions based on a well-thought-out plan, are fundamentally essential to accuracy and to the prevention of any duplication of count. In some cases the use of duplicate or coupon tags proves very valuable. On these tags provision is made for recording in duplicate the number of units and condition as to salability, and they are ruled with two money columns. ”

“ Machine Tools. Under the head of machine tools, an inventory covers all tools of this character, whether purchased or manufactured in the plant. Since large plants usually manufacture their own machine tools, this form is used to show date of manufacture or purchase, description, cost of material and labor, per cent, and amount added to cover the factory burden, and the total cost. Like the form used for machinery and equipment, all machine tools of a given class should be inventoried on the same sheet, Fig. 16.
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Fig. ”

“ The application of this figure of percentage of cost of goods sold to the sales for the period gives the cost of goods sold, which, subtracted from the opening inventory plus goods purchased, gives an estimate of the goods in stock. A perpetual inventory kept by quantities rather than by values serves the purpose in many establishments. ”

“ There are good factories, well equipped, here, but they are not working, partly for lack of material and partly, perhaps, because some crazy fool imagined that to take an inventory you must bring everything to a standstill. ”

“ In a small factory making just one product—or a few simple products—where the conditions are such that the manager has an intimate knowledge of all processes and can exercise personal control over them, fairly satisfactory results may accrue under this method, though the amount and therefore the cost of the material consumed in the product can never be known accurately until the inventory has been taken. ”

“ The transportation, insurance, heat, light, bad accounts, unsalable goods, taxes, public donations, and the flood of items that go to swell the outlay of every merchant, whether in the great city or at the country crossroads.
WEEDING OUT Every man in trade should make an inventory of his stock at least once a year. ”

“ Another of our important problems is the distribution of raw materials. We cannot say that we have sufficient raw materials, but we have enough to fill present requirements, and we can hold out for a considerable time with our own production. We have made a thorough inventory and only those factories are supplied which are held to be absolutely in need. ”

“ Where originating and non-originating fungible goods are commingled and exported in the same form, the origin of the good may be determined on the basis of the inventory methods provided for in the Uniform Regulations ”

“ An inventory, which was made the same day, proved that the keeper must have the greatest interest in destroying the depôt entrusted to his care, as the only mode by which he could conceal the extensive robberies he had committed. ”

“ Without such a clean-up it is easy, even when motives are of the very best, to carry forward from year to year as assets supply materials which will never be used and which are therefore nothing but expense items and should be charged against operation. Only a careful periodic appraisal of supply materials and an equally careful inventory indicating their usability can give a correct basis for applying the valuation formula. ”

“ The inspection in the field, in addition to the placing of a percentage for depreciation, should involve a complete check of the inventory, a correction of all errors, due to the construction of new property or the destruction or removal of old, and a compilation of all information required for a complete, correct, and intelligent appraisal of the physical property by the computing office. Every appraisal is different, and every property offers new problems and diverse conditions. ”

“ The only exception is the inventory column, which is intended for the current inventory only. In the three comparative columns at the right, net profits only are entered. This statement gives a history of sales in a nut shell.
Customers' Profit Records. To know the value of each customer, as measured by the profits on his business, is as important as a knowledge of the value of each salesman. It is for the purpose of obtaining this information that columns for calculating net profits are added to the statistical department's copy of the invoice, Fig. ”

“ I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory. ”

“ In some cases the raw material—wool, linen, metal, or whatever it might be—was purchased by the small manufacturer, and the goods were either manufactured for special customers or taken when completed to a neighboring town on market days, there to be sold to a local dealer, or to a merchant who would transport it to another part of the country or export it to other countries. ”

“ The honours of a mayor and corporation are now added to its civil dignities.
Among the almost innumerable branches of trade and manufacture at present carried on, are light and heavy steel goods, (here called toys,) brass and iron foundery, sadlery, military accoutrements, fire-arms, swords and cutlery of various kinds; jewellery, gold, silver, and plated goods; buttons, medals, japannery; gilt, silver, ivory, bone, and other toys; glass, wood-turnery, metal-rolling, tools and implements of all kinds; mill machinery of all sorts, and steam engines on every known principle. ”

“ Armed with knowledge of the general tests which I give in the next chapter, a collector may enter a dealer’s shop near Bond Street or a marine stores in the Old Kent Road, a broker’s at Hackney or a cabinet-maker’s warehouse in a country town, a second-hand furniture shop at Hammersmith or the Caledonian market on a Friday; he may look into a butler’s pantry, peer into a cupboard in a kitchen corner, search amidst the dust of a lumber-room, or reach to the deep interior of a farmhouse dresser or sideboard; and almost always he will come upon a collectable bit of old glass. ”

“ The true way to conciliate these two interests is to lay a duty on foreign manufactures of the material, the growth of which is desired to be encouraged, and to apply the produce of that duty, by way of bounty, either upon the production of the material itself or upon its manufacture at home, or upon both. In this disposition of the thing the manufacturer commences his enterprise under every advantage which is attainable, as to quantity or price of the raw material ”

“ It may be said generally, although not universally, that a complete manufacture is either the ultimate product of prior successive manufactures, such as a watchspring or a penknife, or an intermediate product which may be used for different purposes, such, for instance, as pig iron, iron bars, lumber, or cloth; while a partial manufacture is a mere stage in the development of the material towards an ultimate and predestined product,-such, for instance, as the different parts of a watch, which need only to be put together to make the finished article. ”

“ Distributing producers, or those who convey the raw material to the manufacturer, and the manufactured article to the consumer,—comprehending the commission merchants, wholesale dealers, importers, grocers, butchers, and shopkeepers of every description; their vast machinery being the ships, railroads, highways, waggons, horses, and men by which this distribution is effected. ”

“ A class of merchants or manufacturers arose who are spoken of as "clothiers," or "merchant clothiers," who bought the wool or other raw material, and gave it out to carders or combers, spinners, weavers, fullers, and other craftsmen, paying them for their respective parts in the process of manufacture, and themselves disposing of the product at home or for export. ”

“ Every factory contains a carpenter’s and smith’s shop, and handicraftsmen of group (2) are required in every manufacturing concern. Whilst the industries in which hand labour is exclusively employed are becoming fewer and fewer, there are many trades which, owing to the frequent invention of labour-saving appliances, are passing gradually from the class of handicrafts to that of manufactures. ”

“ Beyond the manufacture of lumber, flour, woolen goods, staves, linseed-oil, wagons, soap, common pottery, cabinet furniture, agricultural implements, stoves, steam-engines, and other iron works, there is nothing produced in the way of manufactures worthy of mention. ”

“ The requisitions for material go through the buying department, the designs go from the drawing office and in a reasonable time, if the organization is complete, the parts commence to collect in the various stores throughout the factory. When the stock is sufficiently forward to ensure a regular supply to the various shops ”

“ The history of almost all our other manufactures, in which great improvements have been made of late years, in some cases at an immense expense, and after numbers of unsuccessful experiments, strikingly illustrates and enforces the above remarks. It is besides an acknowledged fact, that the owners of factories are often amongst the most extensive purchasers at the halls, where they buy from the domestic clothier the established articles of manufacture, or are able at once to answer a great and sudden order ”

“ Artifacts unearthed include pottery and glassware, clay pipes, building materials and handwrought hardware, tools and farm implements, weapons, kitchen utensils and fireplace accessories, furniture hardware, lighting devices, eating and drinking vessels, tableware, costume accessories and footwear, medical equipment, horse gear, coins and weights, and many items relating to household and town industries, transportation, trade, and fishing. ”

“ Complete manufacture includes all work up to and placing in packages and shipping.
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(6) Hides.—The labor involved in taking hides from floor where dropped, inspecting, fleshing, splitting ears, washing, dipping, draining, salting and curing. The taking up, packing, loading and delivery to car, conveyance for shipment.
(7) Bone Department.—Includes all labor in manufacturing bone products such as horns, hoofs, manufacturing, bone grinding, bone and neatsfoot oils. The collecting and drying of pizzles and sinews, manufacture includes the packing and shipping of all products. ”