Inventory Counting
Inventory counting is crucial to any company that manages an inventory, be it perpetual or periodic. By matching the actual inventory to the quantities saved in the database, companies can make adjustments to existing inventory records, detect unusual or unacceptable discrepancies, and improve inventory management.
You can either manually enter counting results into the system or import the results from Microsoft Excel (saved as a tab-delimited, unicode, or MS-DOS TXT file). For more information, see Manually Entering Counting Results and Importing Counting Results from Microsoft Excel.
Recommendation
The issue and receipt of goods are usually called to a stop before an on-site inventory counting is performed. To keep the system records consistent, we recommend the following practice:
Ensure that all inventory transactions that have happened are recorded in the system.
Create an inventory counting document, specify the items to be counted (including the storage location information), the counting type (counting scenario), and the counters.
Freeze the items for transactions by selecting the
Freeze
checkbox in each row of the document.Add the inventory counting document to the system.
Print the inventory counting document.
Perform on-site counting according to the printed document.
Update the inventory counting document with the counting results.
After creating an inventory counting document to record the counting results, you must post the inventory changes (create an inventory posting document based on the inventory counting document) to effect the adjustments in the system.
You can also enter or import your counting results directly into an inventory posting document. However, you can record only one set of the counting results that are finally reached. It is not possible to record the counters' information or all counters' counting results. In addition, you cannot change the inventory posting document after adding it. Therefore, we recommend that you follow the standard practice of creating an inventory counting document first and then posting the counting results.
Prerequisites
Before you start to count inventory on site, ensure that every inventory transaction (issue or delivery of goods) that has happened in the real world has a corresponding record in the SAP Business One system. This avoids any false alarm at a mismatch between the system and the reality.
Before creating an inventory counting document, ensure that you have defined appropriate settings for this type of document. For more information, see Document Settings: Per Document Tab and Calculation of In-Warehouse Quantities on Count Date.
Counting Scenarios
SAP Business One supports the following counting scenarios:
A single counter
Multiple counters:
Individual counting where individual counters conduct independent counting of an item at a storage location
Team counting where a group of counters' counting results of an item at a storage location add up to its total quantity
A combination of individual counting and team counting
User Counter Versus Employee Counter
A counter can be either an SAP Business One user or an employee that is not an SAP Business One user.
If a counter does not have an SAP Business One user account and you want to maintain his or her information in the counting documents, you must maintain this counter's employment information in the system. For more information, see Creating Employee Master Data.
When selecting counters from the list of employees, you will see only employees that are not SAP Business One users; in other words, if an employee is also defined as an SAP Business One user, you can see this employee only in the list of users.
More Information
The two ways of entering counting results are: