Work in process

Work in process (WIP), work in progress (WIP), goods in process, or in-process inventory are a company's partially finished goods waiting for completion and eventual sale or the value of these items. These items are either just being fabricated or waiting for further processing in a queue or a buffer storage. The term is used in production and supply chain management.
Production management may aim to minimize work in process in order to reduce storage space and bound capital, and minimize risk of earlier expiration of shelf life of the products. A queue leading to a production step shows that the step is well buffered for shortage in supplies from preceding steps, but may also indicate insufficient capacity to process the output from these preceding steps.
WIP in construction projects.
Work-in-process in construction accounting identifies the value of construction projects that are currently being worked on by the construction firm. To properly account for each project, four values are needed for each project at the end of any given month (or period):
By taking the costs-to-date divided by the cost estimate, the percentage complete for the project is calculated. For example:
Calculation of the percentage complete is a valuable tool in determining how much the client should be billed. It is important that billings, and even collection of these billings, are greater than the costs expended to do the work. This ensures that the client is directly funding the construction work and that the contracting firm minimizes borrowing on behalf of the client. Using the example above, suppose the following:
Therefore, for the period ending December 31, the client should be invoiced at least $50,000 to properly fund the work.
Tax treatment.
In the United Kingdom, HMRC has no specific definition of work-in-process, but three different types of uncompleted items are identified for tax purposes: