What is a Periodic Inventory System + When to Use it

Periodic inventory systems don’t continuously update inventory accounts to reflect individual sales. Instead, you manually edit these values at the end of your specified time interval. Because of this, the method requires keeping personal accounts for beginning inventory, purchases and on-hand inventory. Notice that there is no particular need to divide the inventory account into a variety of subsets, such as raw materials, work-in-process, or finished goods.

In a periodic system, all transactions conducted are listed in a purchase account for the company, which monitors inventory based on deduction of the cost of goods sold (COGS). It doesn’t, however, account for broken, damaged, or lost goods and also doesn’t typically reflect returned items. It is why physical inventories are necessary, to accurately reflect how many tangible goods are in a store or storage area.

Periodic inventory FAQs

Periodic inventory systems involve taking a manual count of all goods in stock. Because of its labor-intensive process, inventory records are updated at scheduled intervals, typically at the end of every quarter or year. Many companies may start off with a periodic system because they don’t have enough employees to do regular inventory counts.

• The term periodic inventory system refers to a method of inventory valuation for financial reporting purposes in which a physical count of the inventory is performed at specific intervals.
• Periodic inventory is an accounting stock valuation practice that’s performed at specified intervals.
• As a result, the remaining stock is the inventory from the most recent acquisitions.
• Suppose you’re running a mom-and-pop shop with a reasonably small inventory.
• As its name implies, this solution requires physically taking inventory levels at designated periods.

You do a physical inventory count at the end of the period and compare it to the beginning inventory to determine the cost of goods sold (COGS). As you can see, weighted average in a periodic system is a calculation done outside of the ledger. In this method, you calculate an average for the period instead of moving transactions over when the company bought or sold something during the period. Record inventory sales by crediting the accounts receivable account and crediting the sales account. This journal shows your company’s debits and credits in a simple column form, organised by date.

What Is the Cost of Sales?

Record the purchase of inventory in a journal entry by debiting the purchase account and crediting accounts payable. At the end of the year, a physical inventory count is done to determine the ending inventory balance and the cost of goods sold. This means that perpetual inventory and periodic inventory are counting the same way to arrive at gross margin. Still, the perpetual inventory method is more accurate and more reflective of day-to-day reality. And what’s the difference between a periodic inventory system vs. a perpetual inventory system? The answer lies in the methodology, and today, the distinction is closely tied to software capability.

• You’ll know the amount of inventory without completing the time-consuming task of counting physical inventory periodically.
• The perpetual system can also help streamline different accounting tasks, like updating your general ledger, managing accounts receivable, and giving you a more accurate inventory valuation.
• The software is a periodic system that will display the inventory price recorded at the last physical count – it doesn’t update sales supported.
• It also isn’t as updated as a perpetual system, as it is done at periodic intervals rather than continuously.
• There is a gap between the sale or purchase of inventory and when the inventory activity is recognized.
• Simple counts on legal paper can suffice for collecting product data, especially if you only offer a few goods.

Warehouse managers utilize this method to keep track of inventory balances, which means that stock is updated immediately every time an item is received or sold at any point of sale. The perpetual system may be better suited for businesses that have larger, more complex levels of inventory and those with higher when a periodic inventory system is used sales volumes. For instance, grocery stores or pharmacies tend to use perpetual inventory systems. One of the main differences between these two types of inventory systems involves the companies that use them. Smaller businesses and those with low sales volumes may be better off using the periodic system.