Stock Ageing Report Format
How long each line has sat without moving, and what that ties up.
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As at [date].
| Item | Value | Days since movement | Bucket |
|---|---|---|---|
| [add one stock line per line] |
| Age | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 0–90 days | $ 0.00 | — |
| 91–180 days | $ 0.00 | — |
| 181–365 days | $ 0.00 | — |
| Over a year | $ 0.00 | — |
What is a Stock Ageing Report?
A stock ageing report shows how long each line has been sitting without moving and what that inaction is costing. It buckets inventory by age — under 30 days, 30 to 60, 60 to 90, over a year — and puts a value against each bucket. Without it, a warehouse looks healthy on a single total figure while a large slice of that total is unsellable stock nobody has looked at in two years.
Inventory controllers, purchasing managers, finance teams preparing year-end accounts, retail merchandisers and auditors all use ageing reports. The recurring uses are three: deciding what to discount, return to supplier or write off; setting the provision for slow-moving and obsolete stock in the accounts; and challenging the buying pattern that created the pile in the first place. In seasonal businesses it is run before each buying cycle so last season's residue is dealt with rather than reordered on top of.
The accounting treatment is where jurisdictions diverge. Inventory is generally carried at the lower of cost and net realisable value, but the standard that governs it — and the disclosure your auditor expects for a slow-moving provision — depends on the framework your accounts are prepared under. Whether a write-down is deductible, and when, is a separate question set by your tax authority. Get the provisioning policy and the timing of any write-off confirmed by your accountant or auditor before the report drives an entry in the ledger.
The report measures time, not demand. A line ageing badly may be genuine dead stock, or a spare held deliberately for a machine that fails rarely and expensively, or a long-lead component bought ahead. Ageing alone cannot tell you which, so it should never trigger an automatic write-off. It also says nothing about whether the stock physically exists — that is what a count is for — and it does not replace an obsolescence review with the people who know why each line is there.
What to put in a Stock Ageing Report
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | For example: Barton Supply Co. |
| Your address | For example: Unit 7, Barton Road, Columbus, OH 43212 |
| Period to | Free text |
| Stock by age | One per line: Item | Value | Days since last movement |
How to write a Stock Ageing Report
Fix what the age clock measures
Decide whether age runs from the receipt date of the stock still on hand or from the last issue or sale date, and state it on the report. The two answers differ sharply for lines that move slowly but regularly. Whichever you pick, apply it consistently, because comparing this quarter's report against one built on the other basis is meaningless.
Choose buckets that match your cycle
The standard 0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, 91 to 180 and 180 plus suits fast-moving consumables. It is useless for capital spares where anything under a year is normal. Set the boundaries around your own replenishment cycle and shelf life so that landing in the worst bucket actually means something is wrong, not just that the category is slow by nature.
Value each bucket, not just count units
Quantity tells you what to move; value tells you what is worth arguing about. Show cost value per bucket and the percentage of total inventory value each represents. A thousand ageing washers and four ageing gearboxes need very different conversations, and only a valued report puts them in the right order of attention.
Separate the deliberate holdings out
Flag critical spares, safety stock, consignment stock and anything held under a customer commitment before you circulate the report. Otherwise every review starts with the same twenty minutes of explaining why the insurance spares are old on purpose. A short reason code column against those lines keeps attention on the stock that genuinely should have moved.
End with a decision per aged line
For everything in the worst buckets, record one outcome: discount and sell, return to supplier, use in another assembly, scrap, or hold with a stated reason and a review date. Give each an owner. A report circulated without decisions simply reappears next quarter with the same lines a quarter older and worth less.
Common mistakes
- Ageing from the last receipt rather than from the stock on hand makes an old line look new the moment one fresh unit is delivered into the same bin.
- Reporting quantities without values sends the review chasing thousands of cheap items while the expensive dead stock stays invisible.
- Using one set of age buckets across fast-moving consumables and capital spares produces a permanent false alarm that people quickly learn to ignore.
- Treating the ageing report as authority to write stock down, without the provisioning policy your auditor accepts, creates an entry that gets reversed at year-end.
- Circulating the report without a named decision against each aged line guarantees the same stock appears next quarter, older and harder to sell.
Frequently asked questions
What is a stock ageing report used for?
Three things: freeing cash by identifying stock to discount, return or scrap; supporting the slow-moving and obsolete provision in the accounts; and exposing the buying patterns that keep creating dead stock. It is also a standard item auditors ask for at year-end, because the age profile is the evidence behind any write-down management has put through.
What are the standard stock ageing buckets?
0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, 91 to 180 and over 180 days is the common default, and many systems add an over-365 bucket. These are conventions, not rules. Set them around your own replenishment cycle and shelf life — for perishables the whole scale may run in days, and for capital spares a twelve-month first bucket can be perfectly reasonable.
How is stock ageing different from stock turnover?
Turnover is a ratio for a whole category — cost of goods sold divided by average inventory — and tells you how fast the group moves on average. Ageing works line by line and shows the tail that the average hides. A category can turn over healthily overall while containing a hundred lines that have not moved in two years.
Should aged stock automatically be written off?
No. Ageing shows time elapsed, not commercial value: critical spares, long-lead items and seasonal stock can be old for good reasons. A write-down is an accounting judgement that has to follow your reporting framework and your auditor's expectations, and its tax treatment is a separate question for your tax authority. Use the report to start the review, not to conclude it.
How often should a stock ageing report be run?
Monthly for fast-moving goods, quarterly for most other businesses, and always before a buying cycle and at year-end. Running it more often than you are willing to act on it just produces a report nobody reads. What matters more than frequency is that each run closes out the decisions raised by the previous one.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.