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Chapter 3 Veterinary Business Protocols 47

TABLE 3.4
Inventory Abbreviations
Bottle btl Gram gm FIGURE 3.4 Inventory reorder tag.
Box or boxes bx or bxs Kilogram kg
Tablet tab Ointment oint Daily Inventory Control
Capsule cap Percentage %
Everyone on staff interacts with the inventory every day.
There may be one or two people in charge of the entire
• #/Box is used when you have things like syringes: inventory, but if you have a “moment in time” perhaps
they come 100/box; or gallons of alcohol, they come you could offer to help, or you may even be asked to help
4/box. with the steps required to maintain inventory.
A good inventory manager develops a sense of what is
Look at the last entry in Table 3.3; the quantity of used, how rapidly it is used, and how quickly it can be
syringes is marked as 8.5 bxs, syringes, 3 mL slip tip, 100/ replaced. Good records and a keen awareness of the
box. The inventory manager now knows there are 850 clinic’s activity all come into play when ordering
syringes on hand. When marking the inventory record supplies. There are several manual methods of knowing
make sure to mark all items in a similar manner. For when to order a product, this is called an order point.
example, the next item might be 6 mL syringes and there Order points can also be set in the management soft­
is ½ box left, you mark 25 in the quantity column and ware if in use.
50/box in the #/box column. Does that mean you have Here is an example, carprofen is a non‐steroidal anti‐
1250, 6 mL syringes? If you are going to mark the actual inflammatory drug used for pain in dogs. The 75 mg
number, mark it as 25 syringes, do not fill in the 50/box tablet is dispensed on almost a daily basis. The trick is to
column! It is OK to leave some areas on the inventory determine what the order point or minimum amount is
sheet blank if it will cause confusion. so that you don’t have too many or not enough. This is
Another area of difficulty is what to count and what where order tags or inventory markers come into play.
not to count. We always count the opened bottle of car­ These can be small or large tags that are placed upon the
profen, there are 125 tablets in there, but we usually item using tape, rubber bands, paper clips, and so on.
don’t count the opened tube of lubricant or that roll of When the item reaches the order point, the tag is
tape that is three‐fourths gone in the exam rooms. If the removed and placed in a box or envelope for the
clinic wants these items counted, a good way to go about inventory manager. This tag will have all the same
this is to look in every exam room and treatment area information upon it that the inventory sheet has, plus an
that would have an open container of lube, keep a order point or minimum and a maximum reorder
running tally, and mark it in the inventory on the lube number. Again, using carprofen, the reorder tag would
line in the closest approximation of full tubes. For look like Figure 3.4.
example, exam room 1 has ½ tube of lube, exam room 2 The order point or the minimum amount available
has an almost full tube, the treatment area has ¼ tube, would be ½ bottle and 1 bottle or maximum amount will
and the surgery has a ¾ full tube. That equals out to 2.5 be ordered. The inventory manager knows that by the
tubes, find the line on the inventory sheet, and add 2.5 time the new bottle arrives the bottle on the shelf will be
tubes to the total count. at ¼ or less, so she orders 1 bottle. This knowledge comes
It is appropriate to abbreviate while marking the from experience and a keen awareness of the activity in
inventory sheets, Table 3.4 lists a few of the commonly the practice.
used abbreviations. The management software can generate a reorder list
if reorder points were placed into the database at the
start and if everyone input items they took out that are
not paid for directly by the client. For example, lube and
rolls of tape are items utilized in the clinic but not sold
Reflection very often to clients directly. This means that if a reorder
point is 1 box of tape or a ½ box of lube, they are not
What surprised you about the amount of work manually deducted each time one is taken from the
involved in inventory control? Is this something inventory room or the clinic will find themselves out of
that you would enjoy helping with or something tape and lube because the reorder point was never
you would do only if paid a great deal of money? reached according to the computer.
Why? Another simpler method of letting the inventory man­
ager know a product is either gone or getting low is to