The thesis is complex research of theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of account and control of commodity losses of trade networks. The analysis and systematization of approaches to the classification of commodity losses in trading networks have been made and classification features for financial and managerial accounting have been proposed. It provides an opportunity to provide effective internal control over the formation and reimbursement of commodity losses. A critical analysis of the existing classifications of commodity losses allowed to supplement the classification of commodity losses of trading networks by the features: «degree of controllability» and «method (cause) of occurrence». The theoretical bases of the functioning and development of retail trade networks have been investigated and the author's definition of the concept «trade network» was proposed. The concept of «operational activity of retail chains» have been expanded, which includes, besides the basic processes of economic activity, inherent in the enterprises of trade (supply, storage and sale), processes inherent in enterprises of restaurant industry (production of semi-finished products and finished products). The result of the study established that the current practice of displaying in accounting of information on inventories in connection with the development of new forms of trade and changes in the conditions of sale leads to incomplete reflection of such information in the accounting system. The author's model of reflection of commodity losses during the arrival, storage and sale of goods in the accounting system have been proposed. Documentation of commodity losses, which serves as reliable information support in the system of management of them have been considered. Based on the classification, the form of primary documents for the presentation of commodity losses is proposed. It is proved that the introduction of information technologies into the accounting process of self-service shopping centers requires the use of advanced methods of automated surveillance and registration of goods. Instead of traditional ways of observing and documenting of business transactions that used in read-out of information about movement of goods manually or using bar codes, introduction of radio frequency identification technology of commodity and property values is a promising factor, which helps to obtain the economic effect from minimizing losses, reducing the labor-intensiveness of warehouse, accounting and analytical works due to their automation, reduction of cases of fraud and negligence, which leads to an increase in incomes and the operating profit of the trading network. The analysis of methods of special control over unreasonable and illegal actions of employees have been made and it is proved that the use of several methods simultaneously greatly increases the efficiency of control procedures. In order to prevent future unreasonable and unlawful actions of the employees of the enterprise, it is proposed to apply special control methods: external audit, hot line, anti-fraud, training for staff, staff rotation, job descriptions. The main elements of internal control were identified – purpose, task, composition of objects, subjects of control with the definition of their functional responsibilities. The organizational and economic methods for reduction of commodity losses of trade networks have been revealed and outlined. These methods represent the organization of inventory accounting for the centers of origin with the identification of subjective and objective reasons, the regulation of decision-making on the results of analysis, the standardization of the level of commodity losses, control of compliance with the established norms, material stimulation of centers of responsibility. The necessity to develop the internal firm standard of internal control have been proved, the Regulations on write-offs of commodity stocks, which establishes criteria for selection of goods that are not subject to implementation, is substantiated for the purpose of their subsequent write-off with the help of the regulated procedure of actions of authorized employees of the network and documentary registration of these operations and is intended to minimize the risks, related to incorrect execution of the procedure.
