Purpose
There are laws that require you to perform a physical inventory at least once during each fiscal year for each storage bin. This physical inventory should check whether the book inventory balance or target stock amount in the system matches the actual stock that physically exists in the storage bin.
In continuous inventory, you distribute the physical inventory for all storage bins over the course of the fiscal year, and can carry out inventories at different times as you require.
This means that you can include the warehouse stock by material type and material quantity that exists on the closing key date, even without a simultaneous physical inventory (annual inventory) from the records in the Warehouse Management system (WMS).For this reason, continuous inventory has the following advantages over annual inventory, which takes place on a key date at the end of the fiscal year:
Prerequisites
You have specified that you want to perform continuous inventory in a certain storage type.
For more information, see the Implementation Guide (IMG) for Warehouse Management under Activities ® Physical Inventory ® Define Types per Storage TypeYou have made settings for printing the warehouse inventory list in Customizing for Warehouse Management under Activities ® Physical Inventory ®
Define Default ValuesProcess Flow
The procedure for continuous inventory is independent from the inventory procedure that you have chosen for carrying out continuous inventory:
In the SAP Menu, choose Logistics ® Logistics Execution ® Internal Whse Processes ® Physical Inventory ® In Warehouse Management
Inventory Procedure |
Menu Path |
Continuous Inventory |
® Continuous Inventory |
Cycle Counting |
® Cycle Counting |
Quant inventory |
® Cycle Counting per Quant |
You can control the scope of the inventory using selection criteria.
When selecting storage bins for inventory, you can only select storage bins for which there are no open transfer orders.
On the screen displaying the list of storage bins selected for inventory, choose Physical Inventory Document ®
Post.The system creates the system inventory record and sets the Inventory planned indicator for the selected storage bins. At this point the storage bin is not yet blocked.
In the inventory document header, the Inv. Status indicator has the value N (Not counted).
Activate the system inventory record.You can only activate an inventory document if all transfer orders for the selected storage bins have been confirmed.
You can create and activate the inventory document in a single step.
In this case, from the list of selected storage bins choose Physical Inventory Document ® Activate.The system sets the Inventory Active indicator for the selected storage bins and in the physical inventory document.
The system blocks the storage bins that you have selected for physical inventory for other stock movements.
You can adjust the layout of the screen for entering inventory counts in the Customizing for Warehouse Management under Activities ® Physical Inventory ®
Define Default Values.
Book Inventory Balance |
Physical Inventory |
Enter Count Result |
The storage bin is an empty storage bin |
You count zero stock |
Select the Zero column for this item |
The storage bin is an empty storage bin |
You count an existing quantity |
Enter the material and the quantity counted |
The storage bin contains material stock |
You count more quants than have been entered in the system |
Choose Goto ® New Item ® List or Single, in order to add the material and the quantity counted |
The storage bin contains material stock |
You count fewer quants than have been entered in the system |
Enter the quantity counted |
The system sets the Inv. Status indicator to Z (counted) in the system inventory record.
Post the differences to the
interim record for differences. In the standard system, storage type 999 is set up as the interim storage area for differences.The system removes the blocks from the storage bins, because the inventory is now complete for these bins.