By Natalie Chapman, Content Marketer for Passare
Merchandise tracking shouldn't feel like a second job. When you don’t rely on memory and manual spreadsheets, you’ll avoid losing money on items that never made it to the bill. Accurate tracking turns your inventory from a "blind spot" into a clear opportunity for growth.
It's the end of the quarter. Revenue is down, but services haven't slowed. You pull up your spreadsheets and scroll through rows of caskets, urns, and keepsakes. But then you realize: you can't easily tell what's sold, what's still in storage, or whether items used for a family ever made it onto their bill.
It might sound strange to lose money on merchandise, but it happens more often than owners realize.
An item used but never invoiced? That revenue disappears.
Pricing entered from memory instead of a set list? You may have charged less than intended.
These aren't dramatic failures, but they can add up quickly.
With accurate merchandise tracking, you won’t have to second-guess your profits or make purchasing decisions on a gut feeling.
Here are 3 practical tips to help you stay on top of merchandise tracking, no matter how busy things get.
The first step to better merchandise tracking is clearly seeing what merchandise is selling, what's sitting, and whether what you purchased matches what you used.
Because when you can't see the gap between what you bought and what you billed, items slip through the cracks. And over time, those missed items eat into your margin.
You can avoid this by having a system that makes the numbers more accessible and visible in the first place.
With Passare’s reporting tools, you can use both built-in and custom merchandise reports to see what's moving and what isn't, without having to build a spreadsheet from scratch.
Plus, reports pull information directly from your cases, so the data is always accurate.
Case tags in Passare take it a step further, allowing you to organize and filter case information by location, case type, or time period. That means you can create reports that will help you spot trends at a glance, like which items sell most in a given month or how one location compares to another.
Learn more ways you can use Passare’s reporting tools here. >>>
A leaky bottom line usually starts with small inconsistencies in your merchandise tracking process. One staff member enters a price from memory, another pulls from an outdated list, and a third forgets to add the item entirely.
No one is trying to fudge the numbers. These kinds of errors can be inevitable when your process depends on manual entry.
Your first instinct may be to add more steps: a checklist, a training refresher, a second set of eyes. And those things can help. But the most reliable fix is to remove the opportunity for error in the first place.
You can do that with the right software.
In Passare, merchandise is tied directly to the case record, so every item sold is accounted for. You know exactly when it was sold and who it was sold to. Items and their prices are selected from a built-in list rather than entered manually by team members, so every case comes out accurate by default. No one has to remember what something costs or whether they added it.
And at the end of the day, your numbers stay accurate.
Once your reports are set up and tracking is accurate, you’ll start to see patterns emerge over time.
Certain urns move in the spring. Certain keepsakes spike around the holidays. Certain caskets just aren't selling anymore.
And when those trends are visible, you can make smarter decisions about what to reorder, what to stop carrying, and where to adjust pricing. Basically, your money will be better spent on merchandise. 👏
Passare integrates with FDL Accounting, so you can reconcile what merchandise cost you against what it earned and get a clear picture of your actual margin (without all the manual work 😉).
Passare's trend reports also show patterns across weeks, months, and quarters, not just a single snapshot. You can even set them up to arrive in your inbox automatically, so the data comes to you right when you need it.
You didn't get into this business to manage spreadsheets. Although if that's your thing, we won't judge.
But whether you love the numbers or not, they matter. Especially when it comes to merchandise. When you know what's selling, standardize how it gets recorded, and use that data to plan ahead, merchandise stops being a blind spot and starts being an opportunity for growth.
Ready to take the first step toward better merchandise tracking?
Get a demo of Passare to see how our reporting tools can help you stay on top of your merchandise and avoid those end-of-quarter surprises.