Inventory Management & Audit
Protecting Your Most Significant Asset
Inventory is often the most significant asset on a company's balance sheet, yet it is highly vulnerable to mismanagement, pilferage, and valuation errors. Under the stringent reporting requirements of CARO 2020 and the newly implemented Income Tax Act, 2025, traditional inventory tracking is no longer sufficient for corporate compliance.
At SBCK, our Inventory Management and Audit practice provides end-to-end solutions—from physical verification and discrepancy reconciliation to complex valuation modeling under Indian Accounting Standards. We ensure that your stock records perfectly mirror physical reality, safeguarding your business from statutory qualifications and GST penal actions.
Our Core Inventory Services
Statutory Physical Verification
Conducting independent physical counts of raw materials, Work-in-Progress (WIP), and finished goods to satisfy statutory auditor requirements and corporate governance mandates.
Inventory Valuation (Ind AS 2 & ICDS II)
Valuing inventory strictly at the lower of Cost or Net Realisable Value (NRV), utilizing FIFO or weighted average methods in full compliance with Indian Accounting Standards.
CARO 2020 Discrepancy Reporting
Identifying material discrepancies between book stock and physical stock, finding root causes, and rectifying issues before the statutory audit to prevent negative MCA reporting.
GST Input Tax Credit (ITC) Reconciliation
Identifying lost, stolen, or destroyed inventory and legally reversing the associated ITC under Section 17(5)(h) of the CGST Act to prevent departmental tax demands.
Special Income Tax Audits (Form 101)
Acting as independent Cost Accountants/Auditors for special inventory valuation audits directed by the Assessing Officer under Section 268(5)(ii) of the Income Tax Act, 2025.
Mandatory Rules & Regulations
As your compliance partners, we ensure your inventory systems strictly adhere to these mandatory Indian regulations.
Companies (Auditor's Report) Order 2020
The 10% Discrepancy Rule
Statutory auditors must explicitly report if a discrepancy of 10% or more in the aggregate for any specific class of inventory (e.g., 10% in Raw Materials) is found during physical verification, and how management dealt with it in the books.
Bank Statement Reconciliation
Auditors must verify whether the quarterly stock statements submitted to banks for working capital limits (in excess of ₹5 Crore) agree with the company's books of accounts.
The New Income Tax Act, 2025 (Section 268)
Special Valuation Audits
Effective April 2026, if a tax Assessing Officer suspects valuation issues, they can direct a mandatory inventory valuation audit under Section 268(5)(ii).
Form 101 Filing
This audit requires a qualified accountant to electronically file a detailed valuation report in Form 101 (which replaced the old Form 6D). SBCK provides comprehensive audit and representation for these directives.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act
Blocked ITC (Section 17(5)(h))
If physical inventory verification reveals goods that are lost, stolen, destroyed, or given as free samples, the Input Tax Credit (ITC) previously claimed on those goods must be legally reversed to avoid severe penalties and departmental actions.
Industries We Serve
Inventory complexities vary drastically across sectors. We tailor our audit approaches to meet the specific statutory demands of your industry.
Manufacturing & Heavy Eng.
Specializing in complex WIP valuations, overhead allocations, and yield variance analysis.
Retail & FMCG
Managing high-volume SKU reconciliations and dealing with expired stock write-offs without triggering GST penalties.
Pharma & Chemicals
Strict batch-level verification, expiry date tracking, and NRV adjustments for near-expiry drugs.
Real Estate & Construction
Accounting for construction materials and project-specific inventory valuation under real estate guidelines.
The SBCK Audit Approach
Cut-Off Procedures
We establish strict cut-off dates to freeze inventory movements, ensuring accurate matching of goods received/dispatched with purchase/sales invoices.
Sheet-to-Floor Verification
We trace physical items back to the stock register to check for completeness, and trace the stock register to physical items to check for actual existence.
Obsolescence Review
We identify slow-moving, non-moving, or damaged stock and advise management on the necessary NRV (Net Realisable Value) write-downs.
Bank Stock Reconciliation
We rigorously reconcile your ERP stock with the statements submitted to your lending institutions, ensuring absolute CARO 2020 compliance.
Frequently Asked Questions
While the Companies Act does not mandate a specific daily or monthly count, CARO 2020 requires it at "reasonable intervals." For fast-moving or high-value goods, this generally means quarterly. For stable goods, an annual count at the end of the financial year is the absolute minimum acceptable standard.
If the shortage exceeds 10% in any specific class of inventory, your statutory auditor must flag it in the final CARO report to the MCA. Additionally, you will have to reverse the GST Input Tax Credit on the missing goods. At SBCK, we conduct pre-audits to find and resolve these discrepancies internally before they become statutory issues.
No. Under ICDS II and Ind AS 2, storage costs (unless necessary in the production process prior to a further production stage) and general administrative overheads must be strictly excluded from the inventory cost.