A retail chain's inventory problem is never the total. It is that the total is right and every individual store is wrong — and you only find out when a store runs out of a fast mover while three others are sitting on it.
A store audit is a scheduled check of each outlet in scope against a fixed checklist, run to the same format every cycle so that findings become comparable store to store and period to period. Depending on the scope you buy, that checklist covers some or all of the following.
Every finding is recorded with a photograph and a timestamp, so a store manager's version and the auditor's version do not have to be adjudicated by whoever is more persuasive on a call.
This is a remote-supervised programme, and it is worth being exact about what that means before you buy it.
A named point of contact per store. Each outlet in scope is assigned a point of contact on our side who knows that store, its categories and the schemes live in the current cycle. The same person runs that store cycle after cycle, which is what makes the trend data worth anything.
Our team is on the call while the count runs. The count and the checklist are executed by your store team, on a call with our point of contact, working through the sequence in order. Questions get answered while the person is standing in front of the shelf, rather than in an email three days later.
The checklist and the format are ours; the hands are yours. We design the checklist from your planogram, price master, scheme calendar and SOP, brief the store, supervise the execution, review what comes back, reconcile it to your POS and ERP position, and issue the report. What we do not do is send an auditor to the shelf.
Photo and timestamp on every exception. Exceptions are captured with a photograph and a timestamp at the moment they are found, uploaded during the call rather than compiled afterwards.
Because the count is executed by the store rather than by an independent visitor, this is a management control tool. It is not independent third-party evidence, and it should not be given to a lender, a statutory auditor or an insurer as though it were. Where that is what you need, you need an on-site independent count — see stock audit and physical inventory verification.
Most of the disappointment in this category comes from a programme being sold as one thing and delivered as another, so here is the boundary in plain terms.
| You need | This programme | What to use instead |
|---|---|---|
| Availability and compliance visibility across many stores, every cycle | Yes — this is exactly what it is for | — |
| Pricing, planogram and promotion execution checked against your own documents | Yes, where that scope is bought | — |
| Short-expiry and damaged stock surfaced with a value against it | Yes | — |
| Evidence a lender, statutory auditor or insurer can rely on | No — the count is executed by the store | An on-site independent count: [stock audit](/services/stock-audit) |
| An unannounced count where pilferage is suspected | No — the programme needs the store team to run it | A surprise on-site count: [stock audit](/services/stock-audit) |
| Findings to raise commercially against a franchisee or distributor | Only with care — see the note below | An on-site independent count for the outlets in dispute |
| A drawing power computation for a working capital facility | No | [Bank stock audit](/services/bank-stock-audit) |
| Warehouse stock audit | Retail store audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Sites | One or a few | Tens to hundreds |
| Duration per site | Days | Hours |
| Frequency | Annual or half-yearly | Monthly, quarterly or rolling |
| Timing | Whenever operations allow | Before opening or after close |
| SKU depth | Deep per SKU | Wide, shallow |
| What matters | Total accuracy and valuation | Per-store accuracy and availability |
| Beyond stock | Storage and control observations | Pricing, display, promotion and expiry compliance |
| Who executes | Our team, on site | Your store team, supervised by ours on the call |
| Reporting | One reconciliation | Store-wise scorecard plus a chain-level roll-up |
If your problem is a warehouse or distribution centre rather than the stores, go to stock audit and physical inventory verification.
Multi-store retail chains. Apparel, footwear, electronics, home, grocery. The recurring question is availability by store, not inventory in aggregate.
Pharmacy chains. Where expiry and batch tracking are the audit, and where a near-expiry finding has a cash value attached to it.
QSR and food service. Daily consumables, theoretical versus actual yield, cold-chain condition, and portion-control compliance.
Franchise networks. Where the outlet is not yours and the audit is a contractual right. Useful for routine visibility — but read the boundary above before relying on it in a dispute.
Brands auditing distributor and dealer outlets. Verifying that scheme stock reached the outlet, that promotional pricing is live, and that the agreed share of shelf exists.
Shop-in-shop and modern trade. Where your display sits inside someone else's store and the only way to know what it looks like is to have someone look, on a schedule, to a format.
Availability failures hiding inside a healthy total. Chain stock of a fast mover looks fine; four stores have none and two have six weeks' cover.
Pricing leakage. A promotional price live on the shelf but not in the till, or a price revision that reached the master and never reached the store.
Scheme stock that never arrived. The scheme was funded, communicated and reported as executed, and the SKUs are not in the store.
Expiry sitting in plain sight. Short-expiry stock nobody has flagged because nobody has walked the shelf with a date in mind.
Variance concentrated by store and category. A chain-level variance is a percentage. Store-level variance, tracked over cycles, is a question worth asking — and where the pattern points at loss rather than records, that is the point to commission an independent on-site count.
Display you are paying for and not getting. Especially in shop-in-shop and modern trade, where the agreement and the reality diverge quietly.
The programme is not limited by where we have people. Because it is run by call with a point of contact per store, geography does not bound it the way a travelling field force would. A chain spread across states is the case it suits best.
On-site counts are bounded, and quoted per site. Where you need an independent visit — a disputed outlet, a suspected loss, evidence for a third party — tell us the store list and the cities and we will tell you which we can reach and on what basis, rather than promising a footprint in advance.
Priced per store, against your list. The fee moves with the number of stores, SKUs per store, the scope you buy — stock only, stock plus pricing and display, or the full checklist — and the frequency. We quote against the actual store list rather than a rate card that fits nobody.
The checklist is built from your documents. Your planogram, your price master, your scheme calendar. A generic retail checklist finds generic problems.
A named contact per store, not a call centre. The same person runs the same stores each cycle, which is the only way the trend line means anything.
We tell you where the evidence stops. A store-executed count is a management control. We say so on this page rather than letting you discover it when a lender rejects the report.
Reporting inside the cycle. Exceptions go out while they can still be corrected.
The finance view as well as the operations view. Short-expiry and damaged stock are reported with a value and a provisioning implication, not just as a count — which is what happens when the audit firm is also an accounting firm.
One team. DSG Corporate Financial Advisors LLP — Chartered Accountants, Company Secretaries, Cost Accountants and lawyers in house.
A scheduled check at store level covering SKU-wise stock counts reconciled to the POS and ERP position and — depending on scope — pricing, display, promotion and expiry compliance, with photographic evidence per store, run to the same format every cycle.
Your store team, on a call with a named point of contact from our side who runs the sequence, answers questions at the shelf and collects the evidence. We design the checklist, brief the store, supervise the execution, review and reconcile the results and issue the reporting. We do not send an auditor to the shelf, and we say so rather than let you assume otherwise.
No. Because the count is executed by the store rather than by an independent visitor, it is a management control tool rather than third-party evidence. It should not be handed to a lender, a statutory auditor or an insurer as though it were independent. Where you need that, you need an on-site independent count — see our stock audit service.
Scale, purpose and who executes. A warehouse audit goes deep at one site, is run by our own team on site, and is about total accuracy and valuation. A store programme goes wide across many sites, runs in hours per store, repeats on a cycle, is executed by store staff under our supervision, and is about per-store accuracy, availability and compliance.
Most chains run a rolling programme so every store is covered at least quarterly, with higher-risk or higher-value stores monthly. Annual-only auditing gives you one data point a year per store, which is not enough to see a trend.
Not on this programme. It depends on the store team being available to run the count on a call, so it has to be scheduled. That matters, because an announced count is the wrong instrument where pilferage is suspected — for that you want an unannounced on-site count by someone independent of the store, which is a stock audit rather than a store audit.
Yes for routine visibility and compliance, and the scope is set by your franchise or distribution agreement. Be careful where a finding is heading for a commercial conversation, though: evidence gathered by an outlet about itself is weak the moment you raise it against that outlet. Have those stores counted on site instead.
For the remote-supervised programme, yes — it is run by call, so it is not bounded by our physical footprint. For an on-site independent count, tell us the store list and the cities and we will tell you honestly which we can reach and on what basis.
Where that scope is bought, yes — shelf price against master, promotional accuracy at the till, planogram and facings, share of shelf, POSM presence, and scheme execution, each with photo evidence against the exception.
Store-wise exceptions are issued within the audit cycle so they can still be corrected. The chain-level roll-up follows at the end of the cycle.
It is a real risk and worth naming. The controls are a fixed sequence run live on the call rather than a form filled in afterwards, photographs with timestamps captured at the point of the finding, reconciliation against your POS and ERP position so a count that does not tie is visible, and an execution-quality note per store across cycles. Those reduce the risk; they do not make the exercise independent, and where independence is the requirement the answer is an on-site count.
Priced per store against your actual store list. The fee moves with the number of stores, SKUs per store, the scope you buy and the frequency. Send the store list and the checklist you use today, if you have one, and we will come back with a per-store rate, a schedule and a sample report.
Send us your store list and your current checklist, if you have one. We will come back with a per-store rate, a schedule and a sample report.
Useful to know up front: how many stores and which cities, roughly how many SKUs per store, the format — own stores, franchise, distributor outlets or shop-in-shop — the scope you want, and the frequency. Stock only, stock plus pricing and display, and the full checklist are three different programmes.
CorporateWalla, operating under DSG Corporate Financial Advisors LLP, 129A Bangur Avenue, Block A, Kolkata 700055.
We will scope the checklist against your own planogram, price master and scheme calendar, and tell you which outlets are better served by an on-site count. Call 72783 76654. Mon–Sat, 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM IST.
