Physical inventory

collage of inventory photos

Accurate equipment records are important to the campus for many reasons:

As a basis for projecting funds required to replace old and purchase new equipment and to support budget requests for these funds.
To enable capital asset accounting and support the Institutional Cost Report (ICR) on which hospital reimbursement rates are based.
To meet State and SUNY requirements for reporting and control.
To establish accountability and increased security against pilferage of vulnerable equipment.
To improve equipment and space utilization through identification of property that is surplus, unusable, or underutilized.

image of barcode tag

These benefits can only be realized through the cooperative efforts of departments and the Property Control Office.

At DHSU, the Property Control Office supervises the inventory. Previously Property Control was staffed to enable the inventory and reconciliations by internal staff on a cycle throughout the year. in 2016 an external firm has been engaged to conduct the inventory.

Steps Required to Start Physical Inventory

Prior to the start of the Physical Inventory the following items need to be provided:

Confirmation of your department codes
Floor plans of your department(s)
List of your Admin contacts for each unit
- Person or persons available to open any locked rooms and provide feedback to missing assets on premises
- Access will need to be provided to all applicable rooms. (This includes labs, office space, hospital rooms and storage areas.)
- After each room has been inventoried we can preview on our laptop Assets Not Found by room number. Information provided at this point will assist in decreasing the final list of "Not Found" vs. "Found" assets. View a sample Assets Not Found letter.
Inform your staff that Property Control will be in the area conducting physical inventory.
Identification of all rooms that will need extra protective gear.

Physical Inventory Process

This is the Physical Inventory Process (PIP). The PIP is dynamic. Each year some modifications are required due to the nature of the work. The department of Property Control works with the internal (Research and Hospital Finance) as well as external entities (such as SUNY Controller, OGS) to make sure all Research and State assets are accounted for and entered into the PCS database.