Ask a timber yard owner how much 4×2 is in stock and you often get one of two answers: “let me check the register”, or a number from the last stock-taking, a month old. Neither is good enough to quote a customer from. This post is about getting to the answer the same day, every day: what makes timber stock hard to control, what good control looks like, and a routine a yard can actually keep.
Why timber stock is harder to control than other stock
A shop that sells boxed goods counts pieces. A timber business cannot. Four things make it different:
- It is measured in volume, not pieces. Logs are bought and sold by CFT or CBM, worked out from girth and length, and sawn timber by length, width and thickness. Two lorries of “200 logs” can be very different amounts of wood.
- One item becomes many. A log goes in at the saw and comes out as planks of several sizes, plus offcuts. Stock control has to follow the wood through that change, not just count what went in and out.
- Sizes multiply. Species × grade × thickness × width × length quickly runs into hundreds of lines, and customers ask for them in feet, millimetres or cubic metres.
- It sits in more than one place. Port, yard, second godown, the mill floor. Stock that is “somewhere” is stock nobody can sell.
Because of this, a timber register that is filled in once a week is always behind, and a monthly physical count only tells you what went wrong after it is too late to find out why.
What good timber stock control looks like
It is less about software than about five habits. Software makes them easy to keep.
1. One unit, and the size as it was written
Decide whether each item is kept in CFT or CBM, and keep the size exactly as the supplier or customer wrote it, 4×2 in inches or 100×50 in millimetres, alongside the volume. Converting sizes by hand is where many stock errors begin. If you need to convert, our free log CFT and CBM calculator does it the way the trade does.
2. Every movement recorded when it happens
Receiving, sawing, adjustment, loading and dispatch each change stock. Each should be entered by the person doing it, at the time, not copied into a register by someone else at the end of the day. A movement entered three days late is three days of wrong stock figures.
3. Stock by size, species and location
The figure that matters is not “total CFT” but “how much 2-inch teak is in the second yard”. Keep every stock line against its location so a salesperson can quote from what is really there.
4. A regular check against the books
Physical counts still matter, but as a check, not as the only source. Count one section of the yard each week, compare it with the book figure, and record the difference as an adjustment with a reason. Small, frequent checks find problems while people still remember what happened.
5. Nothing leaves without paperwork
Stock should only go down when a load leaves against an order and a challan, and the challan should be checked at the gate. That one rule stops most “where did it go?” questions.
A daily routine for a timber yard
| When | Who | What gets recorded |
|---|---|---|
| Morning | Gate | Lorries in, checked against the supplier’s list, log by log |
| Through the day | Mill | Logs sawn and what came out of them, by size |
| Through the day | Loading | What went on each lorry, against its order |
| Before a lorry leaves | Gate | Challan checked against the load |
| Evening | Owner | Today’s stock by size, and anything that did not match |
Five people each record one thing. Nobody has to copy anyone else’s numbers, and the owner reads the result instead of building it.
Where timber stock usually leaks
- Short receipts. The port or supplier sends less than the bill says, and nobody checks log by log, so the shortfall is never claimed.
- Logs without tags. A tag falls off, the log is sawn anyway, and its volume is never matched to the consignment it came from.
- The wrong size loaded. A 4×3 goes out instead of a 4×2. The customer may not complain; your stock is now wrong on two lines.
- Loads without a challan. Usually an “urgent” order, written up later, or not at all.
- Late entries. The register says one thing on Monday and the yard another, and by Friday nobody can say which is right.
Register, spreadsheet or software?
| Register | Spreadsheet | Timber software | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock by size and location | Hard to keep | Possible, by hand | Automatic |
| Who entered what, and when | Unclear | Unclear | Kept for every entry |
| Owner’s view away from the yard | No | If someone emails it | On the phone, live |
| Loads checked against orders | By memory | By memory | Built in |
| Cost | Low | Low | A yearly subscription |
A register works for a small yard with one person who knows everything. Once there is more than one yard, a mill, or staff who change, the record has to live somewhere everyone can add to and the owner can see.
How Timbba does it
Timbba is timber management and stock control software built around the routine above. The gate checks each lorry against the supplier’s list on a phone, the mill records what each log became, the loader picks from the order, and the gate scans the challan before the lorry leaves. Every one of those changes the stock for that size, species and yard as it happens, in CFT and CBM, and the owner sees it on one screen each morning. If you also run a saw, our sawmill management system follows each log from purchase to the boards it made.
Book a demo and we will walk one of your own consignments through it with your team.
