Mid-season, the purser asks why the interior spent double last month. You do not know. You have receipts but no counts, so you cannot tell whether you bought more, used more, or lost more. The stocktake you skipped in April is the answer you cannot give.
Why the interior counts
A stocktake gives you three things a receipt cannot:
- Consumption data — what the boat actually uses per guest-day
- Loss visibility — the gap between what you bought and what you used
- Purchasing accuracy — the ability to order once, correctly
The three counts
| Count | When | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Full stocktake | Start and end of season, at crew changeover | Baseline; reconciles against the books |
| Rolling / cycle count | A category a week, all season | Catches drift early without a shutdown |
| Spot count | Before and after every charter | Charter consumption and charter billing |
Rolling counts are the professional habit. A full stocktake once a year tells you that something went wrong; a weekly cycle count tells you when.
Min/max and the reorder point
Three numbers govern every stocked item:
- Minimum — the level you never want to go below; hitting it means you are into your safety buffer
- Maximum — the most you can sensibly store and use before it expires or degrades
- Reorder point — the level that triggers an order, calculated so that stock arrives before you reach minimum
The reorder point is not the minimum. It is the minimum plus everything you will consume while the order is in transit:
Reorder point = (average daily use x lead-time days) + safety stock
Lead time on a boat is elastic. A Med port might resupply in 48 hours; a remote anchorage might be two weeks and an agent. Set lead times honestly for the itinerary you are actually doing.
Running the count itself
- Count before you restock, never after, or you are counting the delivery.
- Two people, or one person counting and one recording. Solo counts drift.
- Count in a fixed order matching the physical layout of the locker so nothing is missed.
- Freeze movement while counting. If a stew pulls three bottles of shampoo mid-count, the number is fiction.
- Record in the same units you buy in — bottles, cases, or single items, but consistently.
Onboard Notes
- Reconcile the count against purchases and known usage. An unexplained gap is a finding, not an embarrassment — report it rather than adjusting the sheet to make it balance.
- Never adjust a stock record to match the shelf without a note explaining why. That note is the audit trail.
- Beware the second store. Overflow stock in a lazarette, a crew cabin or a tender garage that is not on the sheet will always be found by someone else, at the worst time.
- Set max levels against expiry as well as space. Amenities, sunscreen and anything with a shelf life go out of date faster than you use them.
- Digital inventory apps are only as good as the discipline behind them. A spreadsheet updated the day it changes beats an app updated never.