He said, "Nothing survived, no inventory, no records, no photographs, NOTHING. explained the devastation after Katrina at the Industrial Supply Associations Annual Meeting. Then I began to think about the fact that approximately 40% of all small to medium sized businesses never reopen after a catastrophic event. I felt really sorry for all of those people, knowing less than 20% of homeowners have an accurate inventory of their assets. Through the ordeal of my home inventory chore, I thought a lot about the people affected by Katrina. Now, we were sitting in a hotel room at night, walking through a burnt out house during the day, while listening to our 3 year old saying, "Daddy I'm ready to move back home and play with Shaka and Baby again!" Shaka and Baby are our two dogs we had to leave at the house because the hotels in the area would not accept animals. The signs were there, and each time my wife and I said we would go through and inventory everything, we never actually did. I even thought about friends of ours that had gone through a divorce, they said the worse thing they had to do was to inventory their Assets for the Judge so they could be divided equally. My attorney told me, when we were creating our Living Trust, to create an inventory of our Assets. My insurance agent told me when I purchased my Homeowner's Policy, to create an accurate record of our Assets in case of catastrophe or theft. Getting back to the task at hand, as my wife and I created the inventory of our Assets, I thought about all the times I said I was going to inventory everything we owned, prior to the fire, but never got around to actually doing it. That does not even include construction upgrades to the home. Such as: ceiling fans, pots, pans, silverware, clothing, hats, toys, tools, lawn furniture, etc. But I challenge you to think about the "oh yeah, I didn't think about that" assets. Most people only think about the "easy to remember assets:" refrigerator, stove, sofa, dining room furniture, bedroom furniture, etc. That might help paint a picture as you begin to realize how complicated this process actually was for my wife and I. If you live in a home with a real value of say $500,000, your assets in the home, garage, attic, basement, front and back yard will equate to somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000. That same principle applies to your home as well. In layman's terms, they will have on their shelves between $6 million and $20 million of inventory at any given time. The value of their inventory will range between 6% and 20% of their Top Line sales. Shifting gears for a second, think about a business that does $100 million in sales revenue. But at that time I suddenly began to realize just how complicated this "Home Inventory" thing would actually be. So we could walk through, and room by room create the inventory minus some details. We were somewhat lucky, if you can call it that, because our house did not burn completely to the ground. My wife (who was 7 months pregnant) and I, along with my 3 year old son went through the house and began trying to produce an inventory list of our assets. After the magnitude of what he was asking sank in, I began to panic. He continued by telling me, they will need receipts, the purchase price, makes, models, serial numbers, any photographs of my assets, and the purchase date of everything as well. But the Adjuster explained, "It's a little more complex than that." He went on to say that he needed a list of everything, because it's the information on that list that the insurance company uses to generate the reimbursement check against. After all, we only had two televisions, two DVD players, two computers, and our stereo equipment was in the garage. "You know the number of televisions, DVD players, computers, stereo equipment, etcetera that you own." I thought that would be a piece of cake, since my wife and I are minimalists. As we were walking through what was left of my home, the adjuster said I would have to produce an inventory (list) of all of my Assets. So there I was, unprepared to account for everything that I owned and as luck would have it, the need and urgency to produce this list presented itself at an inopportune time. If you are still standing there by the time they get to COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) I admire your resolve.īeing in the business of helping organizations create better processes to control their inventory, it was ironic that an Insurance Adjuster told me I would have to perform an inventory of my personal assets after a fire in my home. They will mention industry buzz words like: Inventory Turns, FIFO, LIFO, Cycle Counting and on, and on, and on. They will begin talking in a language only a few souls on the planet will understand. If you want to see a business owner cringe, ask them about their inventory.
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