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Concepts and definitions

Inventories

Current assets refer to commodities intended for assignment or consumption as such or after further processing. Current assets are divided into materials and supplies, work in progress, finished goods, other current assets and advance payments.

Materials and supplies refer to the commodities which have been acquired for the purpose of manufacturing current assets by a party obliged to keep books and engaged in manufacturing or service provision. These commodities include the raw materials and materials and auxiliary substances used in the production of goods or services.

Work in progress refers to commodities intended for sale or for use in service production, whose manufacturing process is not finished at the time of the closing of the accounts (semi-finished goods).

Finished goods refer to self manufactured commodities that can be assigned, sold or used in service production. Goods refer to commodities from external suppliers that are intended for sale or for use in service production as they are.

Other current assets refer to commodities bought or manufactured for the purpose of selling them as such or after further processing which are not included in the above mentioned current assets items. Other current assets may include, among others, lots or other property intended for sale which have been transferred from fixed assets to current assets.

Advance payments refer to purchase prices or parts thereof paid to the supplier of current assets commodities before receiving the commodities.

Inventory inquiry

In the inventory inquiry approximate 300 enterprises are asked quarterly for the value of their inventories at the end of the quarter concerned. The values are requested by type of inventory: materials and supplies, fuels and lubricants, unfinished work, finished products and merchandise.

Statistics on trade inventories

Statistics on trade inventories describe the current priced values of trade enterprises by industry. The statistics are compiled quarterly. The values of inventories by industry calculated from a sample are raised to correspond with the value of the inventories of the whole population (enterprise whose industry is trade) using the latest turnover data available from Statistics Finland's Register of Enterprises and Establishments. The raising is based on the assumption that the ratio between the values of turnover and inventories is constant within an industry.

Value of inventories

Value of inventories includes all goods that according to a company's book-keeping form its current assets. According to Section 4 of the Book-keeping Act (1336/1997), current assets refer to commodities intended for assignment or consumption as such or after further processing.

Inventories also include purchases of goods abroad and binding purchase agreements where they represent the company's current assets. Inventories arising from commissioned work are reported by the commissioning company.