A client sent me his inventory report last month. $351K in stock. Everything looked healthy on paper.
Then I asked him one question: "How much of that is actually moving?"
Silence.
Here's what we found: Almost half that value over $150K hadn't moved in 90+ days.
That's not inventory. That's cash sitting still.
Most small businesses don't notice the slow freeze because Excel totals hide the patterns.
A formula updates, a tab refreshes, and the sheet looks fine but the story behind it doesn't change.
Hidden under those green cells?
SKUs reordered out of habit, not demand. Products quietly eating holding costs month after month.
Money trapped in decisions that got stuck in formulas years ago.
When you finally visualize it, the picture changes completely.
You see where money's trapped. Where stock turns fast. And where your gut instinct conflicts with what the data actually shows.
That's exactly what the Inventory Money Map reveals, the truth behind the total.
Because sometimes the biggest financial leaks don't show up in QuickBooks.
They live inside your spreadsheets, disguised as "inventory value."
Ashish Srivastava | Founder @ AshLytics | where data meets direction_ | ashlytics.ai