Businesses who sell an actual product are familiar with the concept of inventory. Often times the inventory of a business can have many aspects to it people do not think about in advance.

1. Inventory can be costly to purchase
2. Storage of inventory and any constraints must be considered
3. Inventory does not always come ready to resell
4. Raw Materials inventory are the components which must be assembled
5. Work in Process is inventory which is being assembled but not yet finished
6. Finished Goods are the final product which is ready to be sold
7. If a product is purchased and ready for sale as is, it is automatically a Finished Good
8. The cost of a finished good consists of both the cost of the parts and the labor expense to assemble them
9. Companies often count inventory 1 or 2 times a year, referred to as "taking inventory" or just "inventory"
10. After counting of the physical inventory, the totals are compared against any computer system tracking to see how accurate they are
11. Inventory theft is a major problem for most companies