Year-end stock when the client's till keeps it

Which year-end inventory figures a firm must check and adjust in the ledger when a client keeps its stock in Achekam's till and stock screens.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

A client that sells through Achekam's till looks, at first sight, like the easiest inventory client a firm could have. Every sale updates stock on the spot, every sale posts cost of sales to the ledger, and every product has a quantity on hand. It is tempting to take the inventory figure in the trial balance and move on.

That would be a mistake, not because the till is wrong but because of what it does and does not post. The inventory account in the ledger and the quantities in the stock screens follow different rules, and at year end the firm has to bring them together. This article explains where they part company and how to close the gap.

What moves the inventory account and what does not

Start with what posts. Every till sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal in the same step, including cost of sales against inventory at the product's cost price. The sale also takes the sold quantity off stock at the till's location, and refuses to take a product's quantity negative unless the business allows negative stock. A refund puts the goods back into stock.

Now what does not post. Stock counts, wastage, transfers and opening quantities do not post to the general ledger; only till sales and till returns move the inventory account. Goods received against a purchase order do not add stock either.

The result is two records that drift apart over the year:

Neither is the year-end figure on its own. The figure for the statements is the counted quantity, valued at cost, or at net realisable value where that is lower.

One cost price per product, with no FIFO or weighted average

The second issue is valuation. Cost of sales uses the single cost price typed on the product, with no FIFO or weighted-average costing, and no screen lets a business change a product's cost after creating it.

The frameworks allow a standard cost to be used for convenience only if the result approximates actual cost, and for ordinary interchangeable items they require cost to be assigned using FIFO or weighted average. The IFRS Foundation's summary of IAS 2 explains how the cost of inventories is determined, which cost formulas may be used and why inventories are carried at the lower of cost and net realisable value; IFRS for SMEs follows the same approach in its inventories section.

So a cost typed when the product was created will drift from real cost as supplier prices move. For a client with stable prices and fast-moving stock, the difference may be small. For one whose purchase prices have risen, the till will have charged cost of sales at an out-of-date cost, and closing stock valued at that cost will be understated.

Stock counts that change quantities but not the ledger

Where the client has the Warehousing add-on, a stock count sets a location's quantity to what was counted and records the difference as an adjustment. That gives the firm a clean list of counted quantities by location at year end, the starting point for the valuation.

But the adjustment stays in the stock records and never reaches the ledger. A count that finds shrinkage lowers the quantities on screen while the inventory account carries on as if nothing were missing. Attend or review the count as you would for any client; attending the client's inventory count covers that side.

The adjusting entry that brings the ledger to the count

The year-end work is a reconciliation in three columns:

1. Counted quantity per product at year end.
2. Valuation at actual cost under the client's cost formula, using supplier invoices, tested for net realisable value on slow-moving, damaged or obsolete lines.
3. Ledger balance of the inventory account at year end.

The difference between the valued count and the ledger balance is the adjustment, usually against cost of sales. In the statements Studio, staff can post a year-end adjusting entry; a wrong one is reversed with a record of who and why, never deleted.

Decide where the adjustment should live. When a set of statements is rolled forward to the next year, adjusting entries are not carried forward, and every figure is rebuilt from the new trial balance. If the adjustment exists only in the Studio, next year's opening inventory in the client's ledger will still be wrong. Where the firm has access to the client's books, post the same adjustment there as a manual journal, so next year opens from the counted position. The choice is discussed in year-end adjusting entries.

The inventories policy and note

The policy and note should describe what the client actually does, not what the software does. The Studio includes standard accounting policy wording based on IFRS for SMEs, labelled for review before issue, and notes take their figures from the mapped trial balance. Check three things:

• The cost formula stated is the one used in your valuation.
• Write-downs to net realisable value are described where there were any.
• The note's figure agrees to the adjusted inventory line.

A client using the till is well placed to give you accurate quantities. Valuation and the ledger remain the firm's job at year end, and they are worth planning before the count rather than after it.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.