What Are Consumables?

Consumables are low-value items that are used up in normal operation and replaced regularly - printer toner, gloves, batteries, screws, cleaning chemicals, coffee. Unlike equipment, a consumable is not assigned to a person and returned later; it leaves stock by being consumed. That single difference drives how they are bought, tracked, and accounted for: by quantity rather than identity, against a par level rather than an owner, and expensed at purchase rather than depreciated over years.

Consumables vs fixed assets

A fixed asset - a laptop, a floor scrubber, a banquet table - is bought once, used for years, tracked as an individual item with its own history, and depreciated in the accounts. A consumable is the opposite on every axis: short life, tracked as a quantity (“38 boxes of gloves”), and written off as an expense the moment it is bought.

The grey zone is cheap durable kit: a £15 stapler lasts a decade, but nobody tracks staplers individually. Most organisations draw the line with a capitalisation threshold - purchases above a set value become assets with records; below it, they are consumables or minor expenses. Where the threshold sits matters less than applying it consistently.

Examples by setting

• Office - toner and ink, paper, pens, batteries, cable ties, coffee and kitchen supplies.
• Workshop and trades - abrasives, saw blades, drill bits, fixings, adhesives, welding wire, disposable PPE such as gloves and ear plugs.
• Hospitality and events - cleaning chemicals, napkins, food wrap, candles, guest amenities; the stock that supports durable kit like banquet equipment without being part of it.
• Healthcare - gloves, dressings, syringes, sanitiser.
• Rental operations - wax, straps, laces, and spare buckles behind a fleet of ski rental equipment.

The pattern across all of them: consumption is normal, so the question is never “where is it?” but “how many are left, and when do we reorder?”.

How to track consumables

Tracking by quantity needs only a few moving parts done consistently:

• A reorder point per item - the stock level that triggers a purchase - and a target quantity to restock up to.
• Counts on a rhythm. Quick, regular counts of consumable stock keep the recorded quantity honest; gaps between record and shelf are an early sign of waste or inventory shrinkage.
• Rotation for anything with a shelf life. Issue oldest stock first (FIFO) so chemicals, adhesives, and batteries do not expire at the back.
• One owner per stock location. Shared cupboards with no owner are where reorder discipline goes to die.
• A note of anything on backorder - stock you have ordered but not received - so two people do not solve the same shortage twice.

Common mistakes

The classic failure modes sit at the two extremes. Some teams track consumables like assets - individual records for boxes of gloves - and abandon the system within a month under its own admin weight. Others track nothing and discover the toner situation only when the printer stops mid-job, triggering a panic order at the worst price. The workable middle is quantity tracking with reorder points and an occasional count. In AMPthilly, consumables are their own asset type alongside physical and digital assets, with per-item reorder points, target stock, and supplier details driving restocking.

Related terms

• FIFO - first in, first out; the rotation method for dated consumable stock
• LIFO - last in, first out; the alternative rotation and valuation method
• Par Level - the target quantity to hold of each consumable
• Inventory Shrinkage - the unexplained losses regular counts catch early
• Backorder - ordered stock that has not yet arrived