Stock takes — counting a warehouse
How a count is raised, why it is a works order, what the two types really differ on, and why nothing moves until you finish.
Section 01
A stock take is a works order
2 minutes
There is no separate stock-take module, and that is the first thing to know. A count is a works order with a different type — it is scheduled, assigned to a group, and appears on the production calendar alongside everything else the factory is doing that week.
That is deliberate: counting is work, it takes people and hours, and treating it as work means it gets planned rather than squeezed into a Friday afternoon.
New to this? Stock accuracy — counting without stopping covers why and how often. This page is the mechanics.
Section 02
Raising one, and which type to pick
2 minutes
Choose Complete Stock Take or Real-Time Stock Take at the bottom of the Type list. The form immediately drops everything a count does not need — no products, no bill of materials, no sales order — and asks only for the dates and the warehouse you are counting.
| Type | What is different |
|---|---|
| Complete Stock Take | Manual stock adjustments are switched off for the whole warehouse while it runs. The only way to change a quantity is to count it, so nobody can quietly correct a figure behind the count. |
| Real-Time Stock Take | Adjust Stock stays available. Use it when the warehouse has to keep trading normally while you count. |
The names suggest that only the complete type needs everything counted. They do not differ there: neither can be finished until every product container in the warehouse has a count against it. The difference is whether adjustments stay open, not how much you have to count.
A warehouse can only have one stock take running. Starting a second is refused until the first is finished — which is what you want, since two counts against the same shelves would produce two answers.
Section 03
Counting: scan, then record
3 minutes
Counting does not happen on the works order. It happens at the shelf, on a phone.
The Perform Stock Take button only appears when two things are true: a stock take is running on that barcode’s warehouse, and the barcode is a product container rather than a location. Scanning an empty shelf offers nothing to count, which is the correct answer rather than a bug.
| Field | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Counted quantity | What is physically there. Not what you think should be there — the whole point is the difference between the two. |
| Reason | Required. Six months on, “damaged, binned on the day” is worth far more than a bare number, and it is the only place that context survives. |
| Struck off | Marks the container as gone rather than merely empty — the lot is finished, not waiting to be refilled. |
Recording a count does not change stock. It files a variance — system said X, we counted Y — and the figure on screen stays exactly as it was. Corrections are applied in one go when the stock take is finished, so a half-done count never leaves the warehouse in a worse state than when you started.
Bay 1 of Main warehouse holds a container of Inner Steel Shell. The system says −1, which is nonsense — negative stock always is. The shelf is empty, so you record 0 with the reason “shelf empty on count”. Open the stock take and the line reads expected −1, counted 0. The container still says −1, and will until you finish.
Section 04
Finishing it
2 minutes
Press Finish on the works order, then Submit Works Order. If anything in the warehouse has not been counted, you will not get an error — you get the list.
A panel headed Linked Barcodes shows every container still missing a count, with a Bulk Submit to clear them in one pass. The rule that blocks the finish and the tool that unblocks it are the same screen, so a count cannot be quietly closed with half the warehouse unvisited.
Every variance is written as a stock movement, not typed over the old figure. The correction is dated, attributed and permanent in the movement history, and the quantity is rebuilt from those movements — so the next goods-in or pick starts from the counted number instead of silently reverting to the old one. The warehouse is then released for its next count.
Section 05
What to watch for
2 minutes
- Count when nothing is moving. Goods arriving or picks going out mid-count are the usual reason a variance looks wrong. Early morning, or a quiet bay at a time.
- A cancelled count releases the warehouse. If you abandon a stock take, the warehouse is freed straight away and you can raise another one.
- Negative stock is a signal, not a rounding error. It means something left without being recorded. The count corrects the number; only asking why stops it happening again.
- Counting can trigger quality checks. An inspection plan can be set to fire when a stock take covers its product, so a count doubles as a condition check on older stock.
If a figure is wrong for a reason you already know — a delivery booked to the wrong bay, a pick recorded twice — correct it with a stock adjustment and say why. A stock take is evidence of what is on the shelf, and using it as a general-purpose eraser makes the one record you might have to defend less trustworthy.