Inventory Count

Inventory Count is the method of monitoring what is in stock for certain items and certain storage locations. This is also known as a stock take.

Using the Inventory Count function you can define templates, or setups, which contain the scope, operating conditions and analysis dimensions for a particular type of inventory count.

Each template optionally defines the following:

  • Whether or not it is a 'full' or 'cyclic' count.
  • How the count will operate.
  • The range of warehouses, zones, locations, items, batches, item analysis, storage characteristics and so on., to be included.
  • Whether or not tolerances are used and, if so, what they are.
  • Any overrides to display to the user when generating a count.
  • What movement types to use when updating the inventory.

There are two types of inventory count:

  • Full - this processes all the items defined.
  • Cyclic - this uses the last counted date, count frequency, number of counts on a warehouse and random item selection mechanism to define what appears in a count.

The inventory count can specify conditions to control the action taken when discrepancies occur from an inventory count. Tolerance values can be defined, below which a write-on or write-off will be automatic, but above which manual authorization is required. Tolerance checking is optional and can be switched off if not required. If it is switched off, any tolerance values are ignored and write-ons and write-offs automatically generate inventory updates.

Inventory count generates movement orders to write-on or write-off inventory. A movement order of the receipt type is used to write-on inventory and a movement order of the issue type is used to write-off inventory. Any ledger postings, formulae, costing updates and so on., defined on the movement type are performed when creating these orders.

Note: Transactions are not stopped within the Order Fulfilment module whilst a count is taking place. Further receipts or issues of inventory made since the count was generated, therefore, must be controlled.