Instructions for Perpetual Inventory Counts

Counting inventory, regardless of product, is a tedious task. In a pharmacy inventory count, you will encounter various medications and supplies. Not everything is counted in the same way! Some items can be estimated, while others need an exact count. Currently, your pharmacy holds over 16,000 products in its formulary. Out of that, approximately 3,500 unique items are in the pharmacy. How can you differentiate which method to use when counting? This page and subsequent quiz will prepare you to be an efficient counter.

Thank you for participating in our inventory count!

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Sections

Walk in any pharmacy’s stock area and you will see items grouped together in some fashion in order for employees to be able to locate an item quickly. In your pharmacy, most tabs and caps sit on the metal racks. On the shelves, liquids are grouped together, patches are grouped together, and so on… you get the picture. Within these groupings, the items are broken down by sections for inventory purposes. Each section makes up one set of shelves.

You will be assigned one section at a time. Always start from the left top and work your way to the right. Once you reach the end of the shelf, go to the next shelf below and repeat the pattern from left to right. Each section will be labeled in its top left corner. If in doubt, just ask; we are here to help!

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Tabs and Caps

Tabs and caps sections are: tray (Y1 through Y24), original bottle (OB1 and OB2), and high-cost (H1). Each of these sections have a different counting method **cue maniacal laughter**.

Tray

For Y section items, you will estimate what you have on-hand in 10% increments and convert to a number in the app. For unopened bottles, that is 100%, which converts to 1. Anything opened needs to be entered as a decimal. For example, a 500-count bottle that looks half full should be entered as .5 because ¹⁄₂ converts to .5 in decimal format. What if a 30-count bottle has approximately ten pills in it ? Think about it first as a fraction ¹⁰⁄₃₀, then reduce if necessary so ⅓. Converted into a decimal, ⅓ =.33 rounded to two decimal places. You are probably thinking 33% isn’t a 10% increment and you are correct. In some cases, like a 30-count bottle you might be able to hit the percentage in your head and THAT IS FANTASTIC; however, in many cases, the bottles are 100-count, 500-count, and 1000-count so it is just not plausible to determine an exact amount without counting the pills individually. For those cases, a 10% estimate will be just fine. If a 500-count bottle looks like it has roughly 400 or so pills (ergo mostly full), then it is fine to estimate 80% so enter .8 in the app.

Note: if the percentage is smaller than 10% and you can’t quickly calculate the percentage in your head, skip it. For example, three pills in a 30-count bottle can easily be calculated as 10% because ³⁄₃₀ reduces to ⅒. One (3%) or two pills (7%) in a 30-bottle entered as .03 and .07 respectively is fine as long as you remember that, but we don’t expect you to do so. With time-constraints and the quantity of bottles in the Y sections, a calculator is not required.

A complex example

You are counting 100-count lisinopril bottles that all have the same NDC. You have two unopened bottles, a third is opened and looks like it around ¾ so 75% full, and a fourth bottle only has three tabs in it. What is the quantity that you enter into the app?

2.75 is the answer because you are counting two bottles plus the one partial bottle. The bottle with only 3 tabs in it is under 10% so that is negligible. Do not count it.

Original Bottle

You will find an assortment of tabs, caps, gummies, and birth control in OB1 and OB2. The bottles in these sections are meant to be sent unopened so if you find a partial bottle, please report it to your inventory manager. Bottles are counted as one each so if you have four 50-count Vitamin C gummy bottles, you will enter ‘4’ in the app.

Non-bottle “original bottle” items are treated differently as they usually come in packages that can be broken up without breaking a seal to the actual medication. Birth control boxes, for example, might contain several individual packages inside one box. A box that is packaged with three foils, but you count only two inside would be entered in the app as .67 because ⅔ is 67%. Refer to the ‘Help’ section in the app for common fractions if needed.

High Cost

High cost tabs and caps sit with tray zone tabs and caps during normal business hours. Due to their high cost per pill, they are pulled before an inventory count because counting them using the 10% rule could sway the inventory by thousands of dollars! The person assigned to the H1 section will count the pills by hand and will enter the exact quantity in the app. For example, if a bottle contains 52 pills, then 52 is what gets entered in the app.

Tab-Cap Recap

Y Sections: 10% estimates

OB Sections: Count whole bottles only; no estimates. Report any opened bottles. Count opened non-bottles e.g. birth control boxes as exact decimals.

High Cost: Each bottle will be hand-counted to an exact quantity.

Note: Controlled meds are categorized in C sections and are counted like high cost meds. Only pharmacists are assigned to these sections.

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Bulk

Bulk items encompass sections: liquid (), misc(), inhalers(), patches(), topical(), injectables, fridge(), etc. Most of these items can be a breeze. You see 48 full bottles and two half-full bottles of lactulose on the shelf, then ’49’ is what you enter. If there are five full boxes of ipratropium on the shelf, then enter ‘5’.

Sounds easy so far, right? Here is a curveball using the ipratropium above: one ipratropium package has been opened. 40 packets of the 60-count package have been dispensed. What do you enter in the app? Well, 20 of 60 remain so that is ²⁰⁄₆₀, which reduces to⅓. The fraction, ⅓, is 33%. Remember the other four full boxes so the quantity to enter in the app would be: 4.33. Again, refer to the ‘Help’ dropdown to see common fractions converted to decimals if needed. The 10% rule does not work for bulk so always try to have an exact percentage for these sections.

Remember the rule: Unopened containers count as 1; anything opened needs a decimal.

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Perpetual Count Companion App

Entering Data

After the purchasing manager assigns you a section, you will automatically be taken to the ‘Find Drug’ page. With each item, type either a partial of the item name or the NDC and press enter. The whole name or NDC does not have to be entered. The app is designed to narrow down the item for you.

In the example below, you are searching for Dexilant DR 60mg. Just typing in the first few letters was enough for the app to determine that you are looking for Dexilant. On the other hand, you could have typed in the last five numbers of the NDC (17530) and Dexilant DR 60mg would have been the only result to pop up. Try to be as efficient as possible. In other words, typing ‘dexil’ is fine for finding Dexilant, but typing ‘acetam’ for acetaminophen will probably pull too many results so it would be savvy to go with the NDC when searching for more common names.

Each item in the search field is a link. When you find the item you need, just touch the name to be taken to the next page. On the next page, you will see details for the item you chose: current section, NDC, drug name, and pack size.

You will need to enter a quantity. You see three full bottles and one opened bottle with only six pills left. A full bottle has thirty so ⁶⁄₃₀ reduces to ⅕ which equals .2 as a decimal. You enter 3.2 as the total count for the Dexilant DR 60mg and press ‘Add’. The app will take you back to the ‘Find Drug’ page and you move to the next item.

Remember! If you need help converting to the decimal, click on ‘Help’ to see common fractions converted to decimals. If you need a refresher on reducing fractions, check this out.

Curveballs

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