Work-in-Process WIP Inventory: Why Its Important and How to Calculate It

Brands can ensure an optimal stock level with real-time inventory tracking, low inventory level alerts, and a predictive view of remaining product. With accurate customer analytics like demand insight, brands can better financial statement fraud manage inventory by having safety stock to avoid low inventory count situations while also avoiding excess inventory cost. Work in process (WIP) inventory refers to materials that are waiting to be assembled and sold.

TranZact is a team of IIT & IIM graduates who have developed a GST compliant, cloud-based, inventory management software for SME manufacturers. It digitizes your entire business operations, right from customer inquiry to dispatch. This also streamlines your Inventory, Purchase, Sales & Quotation management processes in a hassle-free user-friendly manner. Your total manufacturing costs to sell finished goods must take WIP inventory into account, not only for proper business management but also to keep accurate records.

• There are things it doesn’t consider, like waste, spoilage, downtime, scrap, and MRO inventory.
• When you do this, they turn into completed goods, which are then sold for a profit (which is an increase to your business).
• With Katana, you can track WIP inventory levels at each stage of the production process.
• Upstream operations may be activated to make up a perceived loss or idled to enable a perceived overage to diminish if one segment of WIP is valued too highly or too lowly.
• As such, the difference between WIP and finished goods is based on an inventory’s stage of completion relative to its total inventory.

Then you find that you have invested $225,000 in production costs for the quarter, and the total value of your finished goods is $215,000. In all three of these scenarios, you have unfinished goods (or WIP inventory) at some stage of the process. Continue reading to learn exactly what is WIP inventory, how to calculate it, why it matters, and how it fits into a healthy supply chain. The specific formulas and calculations may differ depending on the accounting method your company uses, such as the weighted average method or the FIFO method. Ensure you double-check your accounting process before using this step-by-step guide. Using our work in process inventory calculator will automate your calculations.

Work-In-Process Inventory Formula

To calculate beginning WIP inventory, determine the ending WIP’s inventory from the prior period and bring it over as the beginning figure of the new financial period. With Katana, you can track WIP inventory levels at each stage of the production process. This information is updated in real time, showing exactly how much WIP you have on hand, where it is located, and what stage of the production process it is in. Katana’s manufacturing ERP also provides tools to help you manage your WIP inventory effectively, such as the ability to set reorder points, so you know when WIP levels reach a certain threshold. In order to calculate work in process, a brand first needs to determine its beginning work inventory for the next time period. A brand also needs to determine its manufacturing costs and the cost of manufactured goods (COGM).

Now that you’ve got a grip on what WIP inventory is, you might be wondering why it’s important to classify in the first place.

• As some businesses physically count their WIP inventory, this wastes a tonne of time and keeps your staff from working on more complicated tasks.
• With some WIP on hand, manufacturers can keep the assembly line moving even when disruptions or slowdowns occur.
• Using this guide and our work in process calculator, you can quickly and effectively work out your WIP inventory.

But an Etsy store that specializes in homemade and custom clothing will have a far larger WIP inventory to manage. The flow of WIP inventory is an indication of how efficient the manufacturer/supplier is at producing the finished goods. Working closely with a supplier and partners in a company’s retail supply chain (such as a 3PL) can help optimize this supply chain. Conversely, high WIP inventory levels may indicate a need to increase production to finish more products or redistribute resources to address bottlenecks. Managing your WIP inventory effectively can help you improve key metrics, such as cost control, production planning, decision-making, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Advantages of Work In Process

Work-in-progress is a broader term encompassing unfinished projects or tasks in various industries, including construction, design, and creative fields. When we think of materials that are turned into goods in a rather short period, that’s work in process inventory. You could also think of it as inventory that is in a state of incompleteness. Work in process (WIP) inventory is most common in the food and beverage industry, construction, CPG, chemical, textiles, and other markets. Katana’s ERP is the perfect solution if you want to improve your WIP tracking and management. The work in process inventory formula is the Beginning WIP Inventory + Manufacturing Costs – COGM.

To determine your COGM, you will need to add your beginning WIP inventory with your total manufacturing costs and then subtract the ending inventory. Costs for the manufacturing process, including labour and all raw materials, are included. Because it calls for an evaluation of the cost of labour and overhead related to the proportion of work completed, calculating WIP inventory is challenging. Most merchants attempt to have as much inventory as possible in the completed product’s condition before the end of a reporting period since it is challenging and time-consuming to compute. Inaccurate accounting can also send the wrong demand signals when purchasing raw materials, which results in overordering materials and decreased cash flow. This excess inventory or underordering materials and increasing costs due to equipment shutdown will pause to bring in of the necessary material.

Work-in-progress sometimes is used interchangeably with work-in-process, but work-in-progress typically refers to more time-consuming projects, such as construction. Work-in-process typically refers to goods that are manufactured relatively quickly. Optimizing WIP inventory is critical for manufacturers who want to reduce costs, improve productivity, and increase profitability. Its efficient management can help reduce production costs, improve productivity, maximize profitability, and meet customer demand. By tracking WIP inventory, manufacturers can identify inefficiencies in their production processes and make adjustments to optimize resources and reduce waste.

Work-in-Process (WIP) Inventory: Why It’s Important and How to Calculate It

The WIP figure also excludes the value of finished products being held as inventory in anticipation of future sales. Similarly to inventory and raw materials, the WIP inventory is accounted for as an asset in the balance sheet. All costs related to the WIP inventory, including the costs of raw materials, overhead costs, and labor costs, need to be considered for the balance sheet to be accurate.

Prevents Counting Inventory Manually

For instance, a bakery producing 50 packets of bread or a company that makes mobile phones assembling various components for an order will be considered to have work in process. While work in progress takes a long time to convert into a finished product. For example, a building whose five floors are to be constructed out of a planned twelve floors building is a WIP example. Renovation, tasks, and services can all be referred to as work in progress, which is more comprehensive than work in process.

A change in the stock-in-trade WIP inventory refers to the difference between the beginning and ending inventory levels of goods that are available for sale or in the process of being manufactured. Working with your supplier and other retail supply chain partners, you can develop ways to optimize the supply chain. If the hair brushes come to you completed and ready to be sold, the cost of fulfilling the order can be accounted for in the cost of goods sold (or COGS) on your accounting sheets. The work in process inventory refers to materials related to products that require additional production at your packing and shipping facilities.

This account contains the cost of the direct material, direct labor, and factory overhead placed into the products on the factory floor. A manufacturer must disclose in its financial statements the cost of its work-in-process as well as the cost of finished goods and materials on hand. One way to optimize or improve the work in process inventory is to turn your products into finished products. When you do this, they turn into completed goods, which are then sold for a profit (which is an increase to your business). Otherwise, the raw materials and the usage of these raw materials count as “losses” for your business. Any raw material inventory that has been combined with human labor but is not yet finished goods inventory is work in process inventory.

In summary, inventory becomes classifiable as work in process when your business must use human labor to finish an item before it can be sold. It is therefore essential that businesses know how it works to determine how it will affect their unique fulfillment process. However, by using this formula, you can get only an estimate of the work in process inventory. For the exact number of work in process inventory, you need to calculate it manually.

Determine the ending WIP inventory from the previous period and carry it over as the beginning number for the current financial period to compute the beginning WIP inventory. Confusingly, some sites list the terms as interchangeable, just used in different contexts. However, the timeframe difference changes which businesses each term applies to. Partnering with a 3PL such as Product Fulfillment Solutions can allow you to manage and view beginning inventory numbers, access demand forecasting tools, and gather data on inventory turnover.