Yes, inventory count of chips must be done.
At the Fiesta, we did it at our years end, if I remember right that was October.

We estimate 1,000's of $1 chips walked over opening weekend at the Palms. Crap tables and the Poker room are the only ones that use $1 chips. The cage had used 20,000 $1 by 10AM Friday. thus the 12,000 2002's had to be put into play.