Inventory valuation

In a set of financial statements there are many items that will need to be accurately valued. These range from non-current assets such as machinery and motor vehicles to liabilities such as accruals.

A particularly important item that we need to value is the current asset of inventory, or ‘stock’ as some people like to call it. This is a figure that we need to get right since inventory is included on both the profit & loss account and the balance sheet so an error would affect both net profit and net assets.

One important aspect of valuing inventory is keeping track of the movement of units of stock.

Inventory valuation methods

There are three different ways to view the movements of inventory into and out of our store room. These are:

• First in, first out (or FIFO)
• Last in, first out (or LIFO)
• Average cost (AVCO).

In your AAT studies you need to be able to calculate values using all three of these methods.

A little scenario

Let’s say we have a very simple business buying and selling apples. We have had a rather quiet month with the following three transactions:

1 January – bought (or purchased) one apple for 50p

5 January – bought a second apple for 60p

10 January – sold (or issued) one apple at a price of 90p

The two figures we are interested in working out are:

• The “cost of the issue” – which would allow us to work out the profit on the sale made on 10 January
• The “value of the remaining inventory” at the end of the period – since we bought two apples and sold one there must be one apple that is left in the store room at the end of January.

Let’s look at how each of these two figures work under each of the three inventory valuation methods.

FIFO

A lot of businesses will sell their oldest units of inventory first. More particularly for items that may spoil (or perish) as they get older. Things such as food and drink. Under FIFO, the “first in” (the oldest unit) is the “first out”, meaning that we would assume that on 10 January we were selling the apple bought on 1 January, the one that cost 50p.

Since the “cost of the issue” is 50p we have made a profit on the sale of 90p – 50p = 40p and the “value of the remaining inventory” is 60p, being the apple bought on 5 January.

LIFO

Under LIFO, the “last in” (the newest unit) is the “first out”, meaning that we would assume we were selling the apple bought on 5 January, the one that cost 60p.

Since the “cost of the issue” is now 60p we have made a profit on the sale of 90p – 60p = 30p and the “value of the remaining inventory” is 50p, being the apple bought on 1 January.

AVCO

What if when we make the sale on 10 December we can’t remember which of the two apples in the store room is which. Under AVCO we take the average cost of the inventory held at the time of the sale. This is the average of the two apples bought giving (50p + 60p)/2 = 55p average cost per apple. We assume that both of the two apples in the store room have this average cost.

Since the “cost of the issue” is now 55p we have made a profit on the sale of 90p – 55p = 35p and the “value of the remaining inventory” is 55p.

Have a go yourself

Here is a slightly more complex example for you to consider:

A business buys and sells bananas, and has had the following three transactions:

1 January – bought 20 bananas for 20p each

5 January – bought 30 bananas for 30p each

10 January – sold 40 bananas

Work out the “cost of the issue” and the “value of remaining inventory” under each of the three inventory valuation methods.

Click below to see me work through my figures using FIFO.

For more news and exclusive tips from First Intuition, visit FI Hub.