How to track medicine expiry in a medical store (and stop losing money on it)

Expired medicine is a quiet loss. It does not show up on any bill, so it often goes unnoticed until the day you clean a shelf and count what you have to throw away. The good news is that almost all of it can be avoided with a small routine.

Why expiry loss happens

• Stock is tracked only as a total. "40 strips of Dolo" tells you nothing about which strips expire first.
• Nobody looks until it is too late. An expiry check done once a year finds medicines that are already past returning.
• The oldest stock is hidden at the back. New stock goes in front, so the old batch sits there until it expires.

Step 1: Track stock batch by batch

Every purchase brings a batch number and an expiry date. Keep both. When you know that you hold 28 tablets of batch A117 expiring in March and 50 of batch B2231 expiring in August, you can make decisions. A single total cannot help you.

Step 2: Sell the oldest batch first

The rule is called FEFO: first expiry, first out. At the counter, always sell the batch that expires first. Doing this by memory fails on a busy day, so it is better when the billing screen picks the batch for you. MedSync does exactly this, and it never bills an expired batch.

Step 3: Look at expiry every month

Once a month, list everything that expires in the next 60 to 90 days. For each item you have three choices:

1. Return it to the supplier. Most suppliers accept returns of near-expiry stock if you ask early, and the window is usually a few months before expiry. Ask your suppliers for their exact policy.
2. Sell it faster. Move it to the front, mention it to staff, or offer it with a related medicine.
3. Write it off. If nothing else works, record it as a loss so your stock and your accounts stay correct.

Step 4: Record the return or write-off properly

A return that is only handed over and never recorded leaves a wrong stock count and a wrong supplier balance. When you record a purchase return or a write-off, stock and accounts should adjust together. In MedSync, a purchase return creates a debit note and reduces the supplier's balance, and a write-off removes the batch from stock.

A simple monthly checklist

1. Open the list of batches expiring within 90 days.
2. Separate what can go back to each supplier.
3. Prepare the returns and record them.
4. Tell staff which items to push this month.
5. Write off anything that is already expired.

Ten minutes a month is enough. The money you save is usually far more than the cost of the time.