The custom stock on your floor, checked against what each customer actually agreed to.

A stocking agreement says you will buy a customer's printed boxes, labels or film in production runs, keep a set range on hand and release it as they call for it. Months later, someone has to check what is really there: which items are past the agreed holding period, which sit above or below their agreed minimum and maximum levels, and which the agreement might ask the customer to take. That means the agreement, every change to it, the inventory report and the release history, side by side, one customer at a time.

In the test, AI reads copies of those same papers and drafts the reconciliation: item by item, the holding period and its start date, the quantity on hand by receipt, the levels, the releases since the last review, and a list of stock the agreement may commit the customer to take, with the clause quoted. A person on your team reviews it before anyone raises it.

The clock starts wherever the agreement says it starts. One distributor's public stocking agreement form gives free storage for 60 days from the date items reach its warehouse, followed by a monthly charge per pallet and a charge per delivery. Your agreements may count from a purchase order, a receipt or the last release, and some say nothing at all. The draft quotes the words it used and shows the start date for each item. A partial release leaves an older receipt and a newer one under the same item number, so it works by lot or receipt date wherever your records show them.

A commitment has a ceiling and a trigger. That same form lists a maximum commitment for each item, has the customer agree to pay for each case stocked even when the stock hasn't been taken by the end of the free period, and lets either side end the arrangement on written notice, with whatever remains invoiced at the pricing in effect at termination. So the quantity on the shelf, the quantity covered by a commitment and the quantity anyone might raise are three different numbers. The draft keeps them apart, and where an agreement is silent it says so instead of assuming.

Levels and part numbers live in different places. Minimum and maximum levels are written in the agreement and kept in your item file, and the two drift as a customer's usage changes. One box can carry your item number, the customer's part number and the converter's item code, and it may be on your floor, at the converter's warehouse or out at the plant. Bundle and pallet counts may not match the unit the agreement uses, and a new artwork revision can strand printed stock even when the quantity looks fine. Holding has physical limits too: a 1997 USDA Forest Products Laboratory paper noted that the conventional fixed-load test does not adequately predict a safe load when storage time is fixed. The draft lists each item above its maximum, below its minimum or with no recent release, and shows the numbers behind it.

Whose stock it is changes the answer. The same form offers two title options: with the distributor until shipment, or with the customer on receipt at the warehouse. Where your team invoices stock it still holds, ASC 606-10-55-83 sets four conditions for bill-and-hold revenue: a substantive reason, product identified separately as belonging to the customer, product ready for physical transfer, and no ability to use it or direct it to another customer. Part of the price may also belong to the custodial service. The draft keeps billed-and-held stock on its own lines and leaves the accounting to your controller.

Custom has a legal meaning, and that stays with your counsel. UCC 2-201(3)(a) speaks of goods specially manufactured for the buyer and not suitable for sale to others in the seller's ordinary course of business, 2-501(1)(b) identifies goods once they are marked or otherwise designated by the seller, and 2-709(1)(b) lets a seller recover the price of goods identified to the contract if it can't resell them at a reasonable price after reasonable effort. One public credit agreement definition of custom inventory covers goods made to customer specifications or carrying customer labels or graphics on the packaging. Those words point to what your counsel would ask: does this item carry the customer's brand, could another customer use it, has anyone tried to resell it. The draft records those facts when your records show them and applies none of these sections. Your reviewer, often your inventory or account manager, compares each draft with the reconciliation your team actually did. None of this is legal or accounting advice.

After your reviewer says yes, each new review gets a draft reconciliation and a list of questions for about 30 days.

A person reads every reconciliation before it reaches a customer or a supplier, and decides whether anything gets raised at all. The same table keeps score on the live reviews.

Any further job is your call, one at a time, priced separately.