Pharmacy reorder points: 90 packs on screen, 70 on the shelf. Should you order?
Your wholesaler now takes seven days to deliver instead of two. You sell about ten packs a day and like to keep ten in reserve, so you reorder when the balance reaches 80 packs. At four o’clock, the stock ledger shows 90. You leave the item off the order.
Then a colleague who has just counted the shelf says, “I’ve checked twice. There are only 70.”
That difference changes today’s decision. A balance of 90 gives you nine days of stock. A balance of 70 gives you just enough to reach delivery day if sales go as expected. Before the supplier closes, you need to account for 20 packs.
Follow the packs from the last count you trust
At opening, the shelf and the ledger both held 80 packs of the same product, strength and pack size.
At 9 a.m., one carton arrived. The delivery note showed ten packs, and the colleague who unpacked it confirmed ten. The software still had the previous supplier’s carton size saved as 20. Receiving one carton therefore took the ledger to 100 packs. The shelf held 90.
By noon, the pharmacy had sold ten packs. Each sale appeared in the stock history. That brought the shelf to 80 and the ledger to 90. The morning’s ten-pack difference was still there.
At 2 p.m., a driver took six packs to another branch. The receiving branch signed for them, but the dispatching branch never entered the transfer. The shelf dropped to 74. The ledger still showed 90.
Just before 4 p.m., another four packs sold. The till issued a receipt, but the sale was still waiting to sync when your colleague counted 70. A few minutes later, the sale appeared in the ledger and the balance dropped to 86. Entering it again would deduct those four packs twice.
What goes on today’s order?
Start with the 86 now on screen. Correct the morning receipt from 20 packs to ten, bringing the balance to 76. Update the carton size before the next delivery. Then record the six-pack transfer against the signed slip and check the entry with the receiving branch. Both your shelf and your ledger now show 70 packs.
If no delivery is already due, place the order today. Your reorder point is 80 packs, and you have 70 left. At ten sales a day, those 70 cover the seven-day wait with no reserve. If you need to preserve your ten-pack cushion, ask whether the supplier can get ten packs to you sooner and count them towards the total order.
The next time a count would change a buying decision, write the count time beside it. Start at the last agreed balance and match each delivery, sale and transfer up to that minute. Here, the four-pack sale only needed time to sync. The carton needed a correction. The six packs needed a transfer entry. A single 20-pack adjustment would have hidden all three.