What inventory accuracy rate should I expect from a 3PL?

The number matters less than the definition behind it. A provider quoting high accuracy on a net basis may be less accurate than one quoting a lower figure on absolute deviation. Establish which measure is being used before comparing two providers, because the same warehouse can honestly produce very different-looking numbers.

How often should stock be counted?

Continuously, through cycle counting, rather than once a year wall-to-wall. Fast-moving items should be counted more often than slow ones. The advantage is that errors surface within days while the cause is still traceable, instead of appearing as one large unexplained variance at year end.

Who pays when a 3PL loses inventory?

It depends on the agreement, and this is worth reading closely before you sign. Warehouse liability is commonly capped, claims usually have to be filed within a defined window, and your own cargo insurance may or may not respond. Ask for the cap, the claims window and the declared-value option in writing.

Can I see my stock levels without asking?

You should be able to. Rolls Right runs its own warehouse management system and customers get real-time inventory visibility through the customer portal, so checking a position does not require a phone call. A demo can be arranged before you commit to anything.

How do I know my 3PL isn't losing my inventory?

How do you know your 3PL isn't losing your stock?

6 min read · Updated August 1, 2026

How do I know my 3PL isn't losing my inventory?

Inventory accuracy at a third-party warehouse should be measured as absolute deviation — the total of every count that is wrong in either direction, divided by total units — and not as a net figure. The distinction matters because netting allows overages to cancel shortages: an inventory with 1,500 items missing and 1,300 unexpectedly present has a net error of 200 units, which can be reported as 98% accurate while 2,800 individual records are actually wrong. The practical safeguards are a cycle-count programme rather than one annual count, an accuracy service level defined in absolute rather than net terms, reconciliation against the customer's own numbers rather than only the warehouse's, and a documented variance process with a threshold that triggers investigation.

Handing your inventory to someone else is an act of trust, and the thing that erodes it is not a dramatic loss. It is discovering, months later, that the numbers were never right and nobody said so.

Most providers are honest. But the way accuracy gets measured leaves a lot of room, and the room is not in your favour unless you ask for it to be closed.

Net accuracy is not accuracy

Here is the arithmetic that hides a problem. Suppose a count on 10,000 units finds 1,500 missing and 1,300 present that should not be. Every one of those 2,800 records is wrong, which is 72% accuracy.

But the net position is only 200 units out. Reported that way it becomes 98%, the service level passes, and nobody investigates. Same warehouse, same count, two numbers thirty points apart.

Ask one question and it settles: is your accuracy figure calculated on absolute deviation or net? If the answer is vague, assume net.

Overages are not good news

It is tempting to treat a surplus as harmless — better than a shortage. It is not. An overage means something was miscounted, misplaced, mis-picked or received against the wrong record, and the same process failure that produced it produces the shortages.

It often also means somebody else's shortage is sitting in your location, which is a different conversation again.

Cycle counts beat the annual count

An annual wall-to-wall count tells you the position on one day a year, usually too late to do anything about it, and it shuts the building to do it.

A cycle-count programme counts a rotating subset continuously — fast movers more often than slow ones — so errors surface in days rather than months, and the trend is visible rather than a single alarming snapshot.

Ask what proportion of SKUs are counted, and how often
Ask whether fast-moving items are counted more frequently than slow ones
Ask to see the variance trend over time, not just the latest number
Ask what threshold triggers an investigation rather than a note

Reconcile against your numbers, not just theirs

A warehouse reconciling its counts against its own system will always agree with itself. The check that has meaning is against your records, and it should be routine rather than an escalation.

That means agreeing up front what gets compared, how often, who investigates a variance, and within what window a claim must be raised. Get the claims window in particular in writing — they are often shorter than people assume.

One company or two

A recurring complaint from operators who have been through a bad transition is that when something went wrong, the provider and the building pointed at each other. That is a structural risk rather than bad luck: where the company selling you the service is not the company running the floor, accountability has a seam in it.

It is worth knowing which arrangement you are buying. Ask who employs the people handling your product, and who owns the trucks that move it. The answers tell you where a problem lands.

How we handle it

Cycle counts and reconciliation against your numbers rather than only ours, with real-time visibility through the customer portal so you are not phoning to ask what you hold. Our own warehouse management system, built in-house and used on the floor daily.

Our people run our floors and our drivers move the freight, so when something needs fixing there is no second company to consult. If a count is wrong you will hear it from us, because you will find out eventually and it is cheaper for everyone if that happens in week one.