The number to watch
Shade movement against shade stock. Paint is where dead stock hides best, because a shade that has not sold in a year still looks like inventory on the shelf. The movement report over the same months last year separates seasonal slowness from genuinely dead lines. Clearing the second category at cost recovers capital that would otherwise sit for another year, and most shops find more of it than they expect.
Litres, packs and shades
The same paint sells in one, four, ten and twenty litre packs at different rates per litre, and in dozens of shades. Keeping pack size and shade as part of the item is what makes the rate right and the stock count match the tins on your shelf. For a shop with a tinting machine, the base and the shade card are different things and only the base is stock — recording it that way keeps the figure honest.
Painter credit against jobs
Your regular buyer is a painter drawing material through a job and settling when the owner pays him. Small amounts, many visits, several weeks. The ledger has to keep itself from the billing or nobody will enter it, and a credit limit set at the start stops a stalled job from continuing to draw. A statement at the end of each month settles the account while the job is fresh in both memories.
Season and shade movement
Paint sells hardest before festivals and in the finishing season, and shade preferences shift year to year. Movement reports over the same months last year are a far better basis for ordering than the last few weeks, particularly for shades that turn slowly. The same report shows which shades have not moved at all — usually a surprising amount of capital sitting on a shelf in tins nobody will ask for.