The days of the annual, end of financial year, stocktake in retail are long over. 

That old-school approach is not needed by the tax office or your accountant. It does not serve your business needs.

My advice is independent retailers should do a custom stocktake, targeting parts of the business by supplier, department, category or product tag.

Some parts of the business will benefit from this being done as regularly as fortnightly, while other parts will benefit from monthly through to six monthly.

A regular custom stocktake will absolutely help you reduce employee theft and customer theft as it will show you what is happening and that will change your behaviour.

The parts of the business where I’d conduct thorough checks more regularly are tobacco products and high moving sought-after items.