Inventory management in the large animal veterinary practice

Abstract

“Inventory is money sitting around in another form.” This is the driving factor for this author’s obsession with inventory management. We, as food animal veterinarians need to stop looking at the products on our shelves or in our trucks as simply a product, and instead as stacks of money. Because that is what they are, an investment with the promise of a profitable return later. So why, then, are food animal practices not managing their inventories as closely as they do their bills, their accounts receivable, or as the cash in a cash drawer? Why do practices accept shrink as just another part of business when in reality it is reducing the practice’s bottom line? In this manuscript the author wants to challenge the reader’s thought process on how they approach inventory and shrink in general.