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Veterinary Inventory Movements: Shrinkage & Adjustments
Updated on September 2, 2026
How to access stock audit logs
In the left sidebar, select the Inventory section. Within the dropdown menu, click on Inventory Movements to view your full warehouse audit trail or to log a new manual adjustment.
Types of Manual Stock Movements
Correctly categorizing every inventory variation is vital for the financial health and financial reporting of your business. The system classifies these manual operations into three primary groups:
1. Inventory Entries (Adding Stock Levels)
Manually increase unit numbers when your physical shelf counts exceed what the system displays, or when supplies arrive outside the standard commercial purchase order flow:
| Adjustment Reason | When should you use it? |
|---|---|
| Physical count adjustment | When running a manual cyclic audit and finding more physical units in your warehouse than registered in the database. |
| Transfer from another branch | Formal entry of retail goods, vaccines, or critical medical supplies shipped from another of your clinic locations. |
| Found stock | Warehouse assets or products located after hours that were missed during initial inventory setup. |
| Other reason | Any exceptional inventory addition that does not fit into standard business categories. |
2. Inventory Exits (Shrinkage, Expirations, & Shortages)
Logging the exact reason why a drug or item leaves your shelves without generating retail revenue is critical to preventing hidden cash leaks:
| Exit Reason | When should you use it? |
|---|---|
| Shrinkage or Expiration | Expired pharmaceuticals, biologicals, or test reagents that must be discarded to guarantee patient clinical safety. |
| Damaged | Supplies, pet food bags, or accessories that suffered breaks, leaks, or general degradation and are unfit for retail sale. |
| Theft or Loss | Mandatory accounting adjustments required after detecting unexplained stock shortages or internal security incidents. |
| Internal use | Surgical materials, antiseptics, or medical drapes consumed directly during daily operations in operating rooms or consult suites. |
| Donation | Medications or specialty food provided at zero commercial cost to animal shelters, rescues, or community care events. |
| Transfer | Outbound stock movements leaves your main facility to restock secondary branch locations. |
| Physical count adjustment | When a physical shelf count reveals that active stock levels are lower than currently displayed in the software database. |
Business Strategy: Advanced Performance Analytics
Categorizing each stock variation today empowers better corporate decision-making tomorrow. By precisely detailing whether inventory loss stems from security shortages, expiration (shrinkage), or operational internal consumption, you can enforce strict auditing controls on key financial areas of your hospital.