SOP For Receiving New Stock In A Pharmacy

Standard operating procedures (SOP) for receiving and arranging new stock supply in a community pharmacy should be adopted by all. It is a laid down procedure that ensure that it is efficient and minimise risk of loss to the pharmacy.

Managing new stock supply in a community pharmacy is a common task. The job is for pharmacy technician, sales assistant, in some organisation interns and even pharmacist. Stock are typically purchased from a wholesaler or sales representative. The supplied stock is sent either through waybill, delivered by the owner or supplied by the wholesale outlet or the sales representative.

The supplied stock must be recorded in the shop and arranged in the storehouse or shelf. The process may be different from one community pharmacy to the other. However, they all achieve the same goal; inventory management.
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SOP For New Stock

The process from stock supplied to arrangement is simple. But it can be complicated if done wrong. To make everything easy, the following guide can be of help.

Documentation Of Price And Expiry Date

The stocks are mostly supplied in cartoons. The first step is to get the goods into the storehouse if they are not to be shelf that very day. If they are to be shelf, the cartoons are moved away to a location within the shop to avoid disturbing workflow. There are some supplies where the invoice is sent separately. In such a case, the cost of each product is documented in the invoice. If the invoice is sent electronically, documentation is done directly on the shop electronic record. As for those where the invoice is sent together with the cartoon, it will be require for the cartoon to be cut open, the invoice brought out and documentation done.

Costing

Costing is the first thing to do. It requires adding profit on each purchased products. Different community pharmacy use different margin. The costing is done by using percentage. For example, if a community pharmacy wants to add 10 % profit on a product, they will multiply the market cost of the product by 1.1 which gives the increase in price. Example is 1.1×cost of product=price. Others are 1.2 for 20%, 1.25 for 25%, etc. The price is then written by the side of each product.

Expiry Date

Lost of money from expired products can be minimized of the date is noted when purchased. Very close to expired products can be returned based on agreement. Far dated ones can then be stocked.

A table that is high enough is required for this job. It should be strong enough to withstand load. Using the floor will make it hard to sort out as it will require bending down.

Using the invoice, the expiry date of each product is documented on the invoice. The expiry date should be written against the product name in the invoice just by the side of the price. It is always advisable to check the expiry date of each item of each product. This is because some wholesalers may add a short dated product of the same brand to a far dated product of the same brand. That is if a wholesaler supply 10 paracetamol syrup and have a short dated paracetamol together with far dated ones, they can supply 8 far dated ones and 2 short dated ones. However, it is not very easy to look through every product especially for community pharmacy with few staffs and large supplies. A rule of thumb is to look for the expiry date of one article of a product if they are sealed together and look at all the article of a product that is not sealed because that is the products they do such to.

New stock

The process should not disturb sales. If the table is big, all the product can be arranged on it. If it is small, the products from each cartoon should be done one by one or separately. It is best to arrange liquid preparation in one end and solid in the other. Liquid include syrup, solution and suspension. The solid are the tablet, capsule, etc.

Price Tagging

The invoice indicates the quantity of each product supplied. If the price tag is an electronic machine, it requires adjusting the settings. From the first product on the invoice, they are tagged. However, this method has its down side. It will be difficult to confirm the quantity supplied. This is because quantity supplied sometimes can be less or higher than quantity invoice.
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The manual price tagging help to identify discrepancy in supply. What they do is that the quantity on the invoice is use to write the price tag for each product. Let's say the invoice says 10 paracetamol syrup was supplied. The price of the paracetamol syrup is written in ten price tag. Locating the paracetamol on the table, the price tag is added to each. If after adding and the price tag that is written on is either remaining or was not enough, it will show that quantity invoice is not quantity supplied.

Arrangement

After adding price tagging each products, they should be taken to the store room until they are to be shelf or arranged on the shelf immediately.

Electronic Documentation

This is the last phase of stock supply. The name of the products supplied is entered into the system if the invoice was not sent electronically. This also include the expiry date, price, quantity supplied, the shelf for each product and minimum quantity before another supply will be required. However, when the invoice is sent electronically, the only information needed is expiry date, price, shelf for each product and minimum quantity before another supply will be required.
However, the paper invoice should be kept in a file for at least two years. They should be arranged by date to make it easy to find for future reference. Those invoice that have been paid for should be separated from the ones payment have not been made or completed. This makes it easy to differentiate them.

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