Tyres, spares and depot diesel in stock

How a fleet tracks tyres, spares and depot diesel as stock by location in Achekam, and the gaps to cover by hand: deliveries, counts and the ledger.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Logistics businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

A fleet workshop is full of things that walk. Tyres are worth stealing and easy to swap for worn ones. Filters, brake pads and batteries go into vehicles without anyone writing it down. The depot diesel tank is dipped when someone remembers, and the reading never quite agrees with the fuel bought less the fuel pumped. At month end the fleet manager knows roughly what was spent on tyres and spares, but not where they went.

Tracking those items as stock, by location, gives you a way to ask the right questions. Achekam's stock features can do much of that, but they also have limits that matter for a workshop. This article sets out how to use them for tyres, spares and diesel, and what you must cover yourself.

A store and a depot tank as stock locations

With the Warehousing add-on, a business keeps stock locations on the server, such as warehouses, stores, bins and vans, with the quantity on hand at each. For a fleet, the natural locations are:

Treating the diesel tank as a location is the useful trick. It lets you record a dip reading as a count, just like a shelf of filters.

Stock transfers between locations go from draft to dispatched to received, and a short delivery is recorded as wastage. When the main store sends tyres to a satellite depot, a transfer shows what left, what arrived and what went missing in between.

Items in the Item Master

Each thing you track becomes a product in the Item Master, found in the Accounting menu. A product is created on the server with a SKU, name, category, selling price, cost price, opening quantity and VAT treatment. The Item Master needs the Point of Sale, Warehousing or Wholesale add-on.

Some practical choices:

• Tyres by size and type. A steer tyre and a drive tyre in the same size are different items if you want to know which you are using faster.
• A SKU scheme people can read. Prefixes such as TYR, FIL and BAT make counts quicker.
• Diesel as one item in litres. Set its cost price from a recent purchase.
• Leave out the trivial. Cable ties and bulbs are not worth counting; expense them.

Plan the list before you create it. No screen lets a business change a product's price, cost or VAT treatment after creating it, so a wrong cost price stays wrong.

Counts that set quantity and record differences

With the Warehousing add-on, a stock count sets a location's quantity to what was counted and records the difference as an adjustment. For a workshop, that adjustment is the whole point: it is the gap between what should be on the shelf and what is.

AccountingTools' explanation of cycle counting describes counting a small part of the stock every day so the whole of it is counted over time instead of in one big annual count. That suits a fleet well:

1. Count tyres every week, because they are valuable and easy to move.
2. Dip the diesel tank at the same time every day or week, and record it as a count.
3. Count each spares bin on a rotating schedule.
4. Investigate any adjustment above an amount you set, the same week.

Goods received do not add stock

Here is the first gap. Goods received against a purchase order do not add stock. When a pallet of tyres arrives against an order, the delivery can be recorded against the order, but the tyre store's quantity does not rise because of it.

Until that changes, a count is what brings the on-hand figure up to date. A workable routine is to count the receiving location straight after a delivery is checked in, so the new quantity is recorded on the day it arrived rather than discovered at the next scheduled count. Keep the delivery note with the count so the increase can be explained.

Nothing posts to the ledger from counts

The second gap matters to your accountant. Stock counts, wastage, transfers and opening quantities do not post to the general ledger; only till sales and till returns move the inventory account. A fleet workshop rarely has a till, so in practice nothing in the stock records changes the value of stock in your books.

That leaves a choice to make with your accountant:

• Expense on purchase, track quantities for control. Tyres, spares and diesel are expensed when the supplier's invoice is posted, and the stock records are used purely to spot losses and plan buying. Simple, and often enough for smaller fleets.
• Hold as inventory, adjust by journal. Purchases go to an inventory account, and at month end a manual journal moves what was used or lost to expense, based on the counts. More work, but the balance sheet shows what is on the shelves.

Either way, write the choice down and apply it every month. If carrier and supplier invoices come in through Financial Intake, the posting decision is made there; carrier invoices turned into suggested postings explains that step. Tyres that come fitted to a new vehicle are part of the vehicle's cost, not stock; buying a new truck covers that.

A first month to try it

Set up the locations, create items for tyres, the main spares and diesel, and run a full count to set the opening quantities. Then count tyres weekly and dip the tank on a fixed schedule, and review the adjustments at month end. The first month's differences usually tell you more about where stock goes than any amount of guessing.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.