Introduction to concrete building products
Practical Action
used.
Maintaining Records
Maintaining reliable records of production, income and expenditure and stock is very important,
even for a very small producer of concrete products. Good records will assist in :-
(i) Ensuring that production is not held up because the raw materials have been used up.
(ii) Assessing accurately how many items are sub-standard and need to be thrown away.
(iii) Assessing the productivity of the workshop.
(iv) Assessing the profitability of the workshop.
(v) Aiding the making of decisions on improvements in the production schedule.
(vi) Aiding the making of decisions on new product lines and products to be no longer made.
(vii) Discovering any theft and pilfering which might exist.
(viii) Providing reliable information to a lending agency on the probability of fully repaying a loan, if
a loan was used to start up the workshop.
(ix) Ensuring that supply of products can meet customers’ demands or, if the demands are
unexpected, the customer can be accurately told of when delivery of the products can be expected.
(x) Identifying production problems.
(xi) Generally give an impression of professionalism to customers and employees.
Daily logs of production and income and expenditure should be kept. However, the records should
be filled in after each batch of concrete has been used up, or each sale made, or each purchasing
trip, rather than at the end of the day because this will help to avoid mistakes. It would also be
useful, at the end of the day's production, to take stock of how much cement, aggregate and mould
oil is left for the next day's production, and also how many moulds are available. The records
should also not just be kept for the sake of it, but be analyzed every few weeks to identify particular
trends, such as an increase or a decrease in demand for a particular product.
Payment for sales may be made by the purchaser on the spot or, regular and reliable customers
may be sent an invoice which they can settle periodically. If invoices are sent, most payers would
want to pay by cheque or electronic transfer, in which case the workshop would need to have its
own bank account. It is also recommended that separate record books are maintained, in addition
the daily records on income and expenditure, of bills paid, for example for cement, aggregate, rent
of site, electricity, water and repair or order of equipment, and of payments received or invoiced for
the sale of the products. These can be referred to in case of query. It shows a professional
approach if any purchaser of products is given a bill, containing the price and company letterhead
or logo and the type and number of products bought. The purchaser retains one copy of the bill
and the workshop retains another copy. These copies can be referred to in case of any future
queries.
Examples of records on stock control, income and expenditure and production are given below,
however, a particular workshop might wish to make use of somewhat different formats for their
records if this suits their style of operation.
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