A boutique stocktake checklist should tell you what is physically in your shop or stockroom, what can be sold and why those figures differ. For UK retailers buying wholesale clothing, that means counting the exact style, colour and size without confusing a supplier pack, a complete set or an online reservation with another physical item.
This is a suggested quantity-control routine, not accounting or tax advice. It covers an existing boutique stockholding. Use the wholesale clothing delivery checklist for a new receipt and the boutique stock-review guide for the later decision about reordering. Here, the aim is a count you can explain before changing an inventory figure.
Set a cut-off before counting wholesale clothing stock
Choose a specific date and time, name the person responsible and save a copy of your inventory report at that point. Record whether its quantity means physical on-hand stock or stock available to sell. Those are not necessarily the same number: an item reserved for an order may still be on your premises.
If practical, pause stock movements in the area being counted. If trading must continue, keep a movement sheet for sales, dispatches, deliveries, returns and transfers during the count. Record the exact option, quantity, time, origin and destination. Reconcile both the count and system report to the same cut-off rather than comparing figures taken at different moments.
Do not assume an online sale immediately removes a physical garment from the building, or that a refund means a returned item has arrived and passed inspection. Check what each event actually did in your own system. Avoid changing inventory settings simply to make a stocktake easier.
Map every location, including the places easy to miss
Give each rail, shelf, box and holding area a location name. Include the shop floor, stockroom, window display, fitting-room returns, photography area and parcels awaiting dispatch. List any stock held off-site separately and obtain a dated count from the person holding it; do not mark it verified because it appears in a spreadsheet.
Keep incoming deliveries that fall after the cut-off apart from the count. Give goods awaiting a condition check or supplier reply their own labelled area. The receiving record should establish whether an item belongs in the counted stock, not where it happens to be standing.
Work through locations in a fixed order and mark each completed area. Do not move garments between counted and uncounted areas without recording the transfer. Count from the garments first, rather than copying the expected number from the stock report.
Define the counting unit before opening a pack
Write the unit beside every count: individual garment, complete saleable set or another explicitly defined selling unit. Keep the supplier reference and your own reference together, with exact colour and labelled size. A shared style name does not make different options interchangeable.
Catwalk’s current terms of service allow individual pieces or the pack or size ratio shown on the product page. That purchasing arrangement does not tell you how your own stock report records the goods. Establish whether a quantity already represents individual units before multiplying it by a pack size.
For a co-ord sold as one complete set, check that its expected components are together and match. Record the complete set as one selling unit and note its components separately. An unmatched top or bottom belongs in an incomplete-set record, not in the total of complete sets. Do not count the complete set and then add its components again as extra stock.
Keep any sealed pack whose contents have not been verified clearly marked as an unverified count. Do not turn the number of bags or cartons into a claimed garment total.
Separate physical presence from availability
Use distinct statuses so the same item cannot appear twice in your totals. A practical sheet can distinguish available saleable stock, allocated orders still on site, condition holds and incomplete sets. The physical location is a separate field: an allocated parcel is not extra stock merely because it has moved from a rail to the dispatch table.
Illustrative example, not Catwalk inventory data: a boutique counts twelve individual tops of one colour and size on site. Three are allocated to orders but have not left the premises; one different top is held for a condition query. That leaves eight available to sell: twelve minus three minus one. The physical count is still twelve. If the system already reports eight as available, subtracting those allocations again would be wrong.
This example assumes the allocated and held items are separate. If your system can attach several statuses to one item, resolve that overlap before adding status totals. Keep dispatched goods and goods not yet received out of the on-site physical count, while retaining the records needed to explain their movements.
Investigate differences before approving an adjustment
Compare the physical count with the matching system measure at the same cut-off. Define your variance consistently, for example physical on-hand minus system on-hand. Do not compare a physical total with an available-to-sell total and label the difference a shortage.
For a mismatch, recount the exact option and nearby locations. Check similar colours, size labels, duplicate product records, mixed packs, incomplete sets and transfers. Then review sales, dispatches, receipts and returns around the cut-off. A movement posted late can explain a discrepancy without proving that stock was lost.
Where possible, have another person perform the recount without being prompted with the expected answer. Keep the first count and recount rather than replacing the original evidence. Record what is established and what remains uncertain; an unexplained difference is not evidence of theft, supplier error or a delivery shortage.
Only an authorised person should release an inventory adjustment under your shop’s process. Retain the old quantity, approved new quantity, reason, supporting record, reviewer and time. Do not alter product references, prices or pack contents to force a count to match.
Copy this boutique stocktake checklist
- Scope: count date, cut-off time, locations included and any off-site stock awaiting confirmation.
- Identity: supplier reference, shop reference, exact colour, labelled size and counting unit.
- Evidence: location, physical count, counter, recount and outstanding checks.
- Status: available, allocated but still on site, condition hold or incomplete set; no overlapping totals.
- Movement: receipts, sales, dispatches, returns and transfers during counting, with times and references.
- Comparison: saved system quantity, what it measures, like-for-like count and signed variance.
- Resolution: evidenced cause or unresolved question, adjustment approval, reviewer and completion time.
Close the stocktake with a usable handover
Save the original report, count sheets, movement log and approved adjustments together. Keep unresolved lines visible with a named owner and next check, rather than calling the entire stocktake complete because the overall total looks close. Surplus in one colour does not cancel a shortage in another.
Pass the verified available quantities to the person responsible for your shop and online channels through your established inventory process. The product-listing checklist covers keeping each customer-facing option consistent. Once the count is reliable, use the separate stock-review worksheet to decide what to buy again. Counting, correcting and reordering are three different decisions.