How to Keep Track of Phone Stock by IMEI

What an IMEI is and why stock records need it

IMEI stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity. It is a 15-digit number that identifies a handset. Phones that take two SIM cards usually have two IMEIs. On most phones you can see it by dialling *#06#, in the settings, or printed on the box and the SIM tray. Tablets, laptops and consoles carry a serial number instead, and the same method applies.

For a shop, the IMEI is the one reliable key. You can search by it, scan it from a label, put it on a receipt and use it to find the unit again months later when a customer comes back. A stock record that works by model and quantity alone cannot tell you which of five identical phones you sold, or which one is faulty.

What to record for every phone

A good unit record is short, and the same for every phone. Record these when the phone arrives, not later:

• The IMEI (both, if there are two) or the serial number.
• Make, model, storage, colour and network lock status.
• Condition, in a few agreed words that everyone on the team uses the same way.
• Where it came from: the supplier, or the customer if it was a trade-in or buy-in.
• What it cost you, including any repair parts you add before selling it.
• The date it arrived and where it is kept.
• Its status: in stock, reserved, sold, returned or being repaired.
• When it was sold, for how much and to whom.

The cost is the field people skip, and the one that matters most when you want to know the profit on a used phone. Agree the wording too: write storage and model names the same way every time, and use one list of conditions, so that a search finds every unit and a report groups them properly.

Scanning in and scanning out

Typing a 15-digit number is slow and easy to get wrong, and one wrong digit means a record that never matches the phone. Scan instead. Print the IMEI as a barcode on a label when the phone arrives, and scan it every time the phone moves: into stock, onto a sale, into a stock check.

Scanning in matters as much as scanning out. When a batch arrives, scan every unit against the delivery note so that anything missing or extra shows straight away. At the till, scan the phone being sold, so that the unit on the receipt is the unit in the customer's hand. A good system also refuses to let the same unit be added to two sales, which is where double sales usually start.

A stock check is a scan too. Walk the shelves and scan what is there, then compare it with what the system says should be there. The differences point you to phones in the wrong place, sold but not recorded or recorded but missing.

Returns, trade-ins and replacements

Phones come back, and they come in. Each time, record the IMEI so that the unit is in your records again, and give it a status that reflects what happened.

• Return: record the IMEI, note whether the phone is faulty, and decide whether it goes back into saleable stock or to repair.
• Trade-in or buy-in: record the IMEI, the condition, what you paid and who you bought it from, then treat it like any other unit.
• Replacement: take one IMEI out of stock and put another in, and link the two in your notes so the story is clear.

Do it at the counter, at the moment it happens. A trade-in recorded at the end of the week is a trade-in with a missing cost and a wrong date.

Spreadsheet or software

A spreadsheet is a fair place to start. It is free, flexible and easy to understand, and for a small number of phones a careful owner can keep it accurate. Its limits show up as the shop gets busier:

• Two people editing the same sheet at once can overwrite each other.
• A spreadsheet will not stop the same IMEI being sold twice.
• Every IMEI is typed by hand, so errors creep in.
• Costing, profit and stock by shop need formulas you have to build and maintain.
• There is no history of who changed what, and rows can be deleted.
• It does not connect to the till, the repair bench or the web shop.

Software that holds each phone as a unit, scans IMEIs and ties the stock to the till removes most of those problems. A simple test of whether you have outgrown the spreadsheet: can you say, within a minute, where a given IMEI is, what it cost and whether it was ever returned? If not, it is time to move. The point to look for is whether the stock record is part of the till or kept separately. IMEI inventory software describes what we mean by that.

Common mistakes

• Typing IMEIs instead of scanning them.
• Recording only one IMEI on a dual-SIM phone.
• Not recording the cost, so profit cannot be worked out later.
• Mixing new, used and refurbished units under the same product with no condition recorded.
• Entering trade-ins and returns days later, or not at all.
• Deleting a row when a phone is sold, instead of marking its status. You lose the history.
• Never doing a stock check, so errors build up unseen.
• Confusing stock control with a blacklist check. They are different jobs.