Inventory accounting — stock costed, margin clear.

They record the movement between purchases, stock on hand, cost of goods sold, write-offs, adjustments and sometimes landed cost. A simple purchase debits inventory and credits accounts payable; when goods sell, the cost shifts from inventory into COGS. Where it gets fiddly is the wastage, shrinkage, obsolete stock and stock-count variances — those need a proper look so the entries reflect what actually happened commercially, not just what the system defaulted to.

COGS is the cost of the stock you sold in the period, so if purchases, returns, landed cost, adjustments or units of measure are off, COGS is off — and your gross margin can't be trusted. We reconcile stock movement back to purchases and sales so the COGS number actually explains the real margin by product, category, branch or sales channel.

Yes — count templates, count instructions, variance reports, reconciliation schedules, and help coordinating the count itself for management or your auditor. Here's what trips people up at audit: counting the items isn't enough. You also have to document the cut-off, the count method, who approved the variances, and how the physical count ties back to the inventory ledger.

Whichever your system supports and suits your stock workflow. IFRS-style inventory accounting generally uses specific identification for unique items, and FIFO or weighted average for interchangeable stock. The real check we run is whether the method is applied consistently, and whether the system settings actually match how you buy and sell — because they often don't.

Yes — Odoo, Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory, QuickBooks, Tally, POS exports, Shopify-style e-commerce reports and plain Excel stock records. And before you go shopping for new inventory software, we'll check whether the problem is really the software or just the setup: duplicate SKUs, missing landed cost, wrong units, weak cut-off, disconnected sales channels. Usually it's the setup.

It's the value you put on stock held at period-end, and it turns on purchase cost, landed cost, stock movement, returns, adjustments, the valuation method, and whether the stock is even still saleable. Under IFRS principles, inventory is carried at the lower of cost and net realisable value — which is why damaged, obsolete or slow-moving items need a review rather than sitting at full cost forever.

Yes. Imported stock usually carries more than the supplier price — freight, customs duty, clearing charges, insurance, all the costs of getting it to its present location and condition. We allocate those across the relevant products wherever the data lets us. Skip landed cost and your product margin looks healthier than it is, and you end up pricing off a number that isn't real.

Inventory records support VAT because purchase bills, import declarations, tax invoices, credit notes, sales invoices and returns all affect the VAT trail. The FTA can inspect accounting records, invoices and supporting calculations. If stock movement does not agree with the commercial records, the VAT return may still add up mathematically but lack evidence during a review.

For VAT and audit support, the business should be able to produce purchase invoices, sales invoices, credit notes, import documents, stock-count records, inventory statements, valuation schedules and the accounting trail from source document to ledger. We organise those documents so inventory, VAT and financial statement numbers can be traced.

Yes. We review ageing, movement history, expiry, damage, product discontinuation, stock-count results and recent selling prices. Management can then decide whether to discount, write down, provide against or remove items. This protects the balance sheet from showing inventory that is unlikely to convert into cash at recorded value.

Yes. Retailers need SKU and channel margin visibility. Restaurants and cafes need ingredient, wastage and recipe-cost awareness. E-commerce sellers need sales-channel and return reconciliation. Trading companies need purchase, freight, customs and warehouse movement tied back to supplier bills and customer invoices. Inventory accounting is different in each sector, but the monthly close logic is the same.

Yes. We prepare stock-count reconciliation, valuation schedules, COGS workings, landed-cost support, slow-moving stock reviews and variance explanations in a format auditors can test. Auditors usually challenge inventory when quantities cannot be verified, valuation is unsupported, obsolete stock is ignored or cut-off around year-end sales and purchases is weak.

Yes. Many UAE SMEs start with Excel stock records. We can clean the spreadsheet, add a controlled stock reconciliation format, connect purchases and sales, and build a monthly valuation schedule. If the business has outgrown Excel, we can recommend a migration path rather than moving bad data into a new system.

Active trading, retail, F&B and e-commerce businesses should reconcile inventory monthly as part of the close. High-volume businesses may need weekly checks for negative stock, fast-moving items, wastage, stock-outs or margin movement. Waiting until year-end makes missing stock, wrong units and unposted purchases much harder to trace.

Yes. We can reconcile inventory by warehouse, branch, store, location or channel where the records track those movements. Inter-branch transfers, goods in transit, consignment stock and returned goods need special attention because the physical movement and accounting entry can happen on different dates.

Yes, if the sales and stock records carry reliable SKU, category, branch or channel data. We can compare selling price, product cost, landed cost, discounts, returns and shrinkage. This helps owners see which products are genuinely profitable and which products only look good because sales volume is high.

Inventory accounting is the discipline of recording, valuing and reporting the stock a business holds — what it cost, where it sits, and what it is worth at each reporting date. It covers the valuation method (FIFO, weighted average or specific identification), the count routines that keep the system honest, write-downs to net realisable value, and the cost of goods sold figure that drives gross margin, the corporate tax computation and the audit.

FIFO for most traders and retailers — it mirrors physical flow and values closing stock at recent prices. Weighted average for interchangeable bulk goods like commodities and food. Specific identification for jewellery, vehicles and serialised high-value items. LIFO is not permitted under IFRS. The method must be applied consistently once chosen; switching needs a documented reason, and under corporate tax the change lands directly in taxable profit.

No — IAS 2 and IFRS for SMEs, the accounting frameworks UAE corporate tax computations rest on, prohibit LIFO (last in, first out). UAE businesses choose between FIFO, weighted average cost and specific identification. If your ERP arrived from a US parent configured for LIFO, the valuation needs restating for UAE statutory and tax reporting — an adjustment we build rather than bury.

Cost of goods sold is usually the largest deduction on a trading company's return, and closing inventory determines it: overstate closing stock and you overstate profit and tax; understate it and you invite an FTA challenge. Write-downs to net realisable value are deductible when documented — count sheets, aging analysis and a written basis. An unsupported inventory figure is one of the first things both auditors and the FTA test.

Goods physically inside a Designated Zone (a fenced free zone meeting the customs conditions, like JAFZA or KIZAD areas) can sit outside UAE VAT until they move into the mainland — at which point import VAT applies. The ledger has to track stock by location for the relief to hold up, and the movement records are exactly what an FTA audit requests. We map zone stock separately from mainland stock as standard.

Cycle count continuously, verify fully once a year. A weekly rotating count of high-value and fast-moving SKUs catches shrinkage in days; the year-end full physical count — with tag control and cut-off documentation — is what your auditor attends and your corporate tax numbers rest on. Businesses that only count annually are choosing to discover a year of problems in one painful evening.

Yes — it's a reconstruction exercise: a verified full count establishes today's truth, purchase and sales records rebuild the movement history, landed costs get recalculated, and the opening variance is posted with a documented basis rather than smuggled into cost of goods sold. If prior VAT or corporate tax filings leaned on the wrong numbers, we quantify the impact so you can decide on corrections with real figures.

Zoho Inventory and Zoho Books, QuickBooks Commerce, Xero with inventory apps, Odoo, Tally and the stock modules of mainstream UAE ERPs. The software matters less than the configuration: units of measure, landed-cost setup, location tracking and the valuation method all set correctly on day one. We configure, migrate opening balances and train your team as part of setup.