First count the products in the correct warehouse slot. When taking inventory, you enter the new actual balance of the selected purchase batch in that slot, rather than the difference to add or subtract. Taking inventory corrects the recorded quantity and saves an event for the correction.
Prepare to take inventory
The warehouse feature must be enabled. You need permission to view products and warehouse information, editing permission that allows inventory adjustments, and access to the warehouse being processed. View-only permission is not enough to take inventory. If the feature is missing or saving is blocked, ask an administrator to check your permissions.
Before saving, identify which purchase batch the products you counted belong to. A single warehouse slot can contain several batches, and the same batch can be stored in several slots. Taking inventory adjusts the quantity of the selected batch in the selected slot. Entering the quantity of the entire shelf as the balance of one batch can distort the total quantity.
For example, the selected batch has a balance of 8, and the other batches in the same slot have a combined quantity of 4. When you enter 6 as the selected batch's new balance, the slot's total quantity changes from 12 to 10. The quantities of the other batches remain unchanged.
The new balance can be zero, but cannot be negative. Zero means that none of the batch being processed remains in this slot. You cannot increase the balance of the system-created default batch by taking inventory. Create a new purchase transaction for the quantity to be added.
Take inventory in the browser
- Open the Warehouse events view and select Inventory from its action buttons.
- In the form's Inventory to be processed section, select the Warehouse and Warehouse slot.
- In the Products that are inventoried section, select the product and Batch. You can search for a product by name or code. Check both the slot's total quantity and the selected batch's current quantity. Here, In warehouse on the form means the product quantity in the selected warehouse slot, rather than the quantity in the entire warehouse.
- Enter the counted quantity in the New balance in the batch field. Add the reason for the correction in the Description field. The description is optional in the browser.
- You can add rows for other products or batches in the same warehouse and slot using Add new product. You can remove an extra row before saving using the trash icon on its right.
- Check all rows and select Update. If you increase the balance of at least one batch, you will see a warning about the effect on the average purchase price and the warehouse value calculated using MAC. Select Yes to confirm the inventory adjustment, or No to return to checking the information without saving.
The balance and history information for the rows on this form is saved together. If saving any row fails, the balance corrections for the other rows are not saved either. The average purchase price is calculated separately in the background after saving.
Mass inventory in the browser is a different feature: you enter the product's new total quantity in a warehouse slot, and the system allocates the correction to purchase batches. Do not use that total quantity as the balance on this batch-specific form.
Take inventory in the Android or iOS app
Open the details of the product you want to count. On Android, select Inventory in the Actions section; if the action buttons are hidden, expand the section using the arrow next to its heading. On iOS, expand the Actions section by tapping its heading or arrow, then select Inventory.
- On the inventory form, select the warehouse, warehouse slot and Purchase Batch. Check the product quantity in the slot and the selected batch's current quantity.
- Enter the counted batch balance in the New amount in batch field. Zero is also allowed.
- Complete Write description for action. The description is required in both mobile apps.
- Check your selections and select Save. Confirm that saving succeeded and check the balances again.
On mobile, you process a batch for one product at a time. The apps do not show the browser's separate confirmation prompt for a balance increase, but the same default batch restrictions and effects on the average price also apply to inventory adjustments on mobile.
What does taking inventory change?
The selected batch's balance is replaced with the quantity you enter. The warehouse slot's total quantity is adjusted by the difference between the new and old batch balances. Taking inventory does not move products to another slot or delete previous events. The correction creates a new Inventory warehouse event and a history event for the purchase batch product, recording the inventory quantity, the person who made the adjustment and the description.
The purchase batch's status is recalculated across all products and slots in the batch. If all balances in the batch are zero, the status is All used. Otherwise, the status is Partially used if the current quantity of at least one batch row is below its original quantity; in all other cases, the status is Received. Setting the balance in one slot to zero therefore does not necessarily empty the entire batch. A zero balance or a status change does not delete the batch.
If you increase the balance of a batch row received directly into that slot above its original quantity, Original number of products is also increased to the new balance. The original zero quantity of a row created by a transfer is not increased in this way.
Effect on the average purchase price and warehouse value
An inventory adjustment that increases the balance adds only the additional quantity found to the weighted average purchase price calculation, at that batch's purchase price. The calculation is: (the product's previous company-wide quantity × previous weighted average price + additional quantity × batch purchase price) ÷ (previous company-wide quantity + additional quantity). The company-wide quantity also includes products at reservation sites. If the previous total quantity is negative because of incorrect history, the calculation uses zero instead.
The weighted average price is a company-wide value for the product, rather than an average price specific to the slot or warehouse where inventory was taken. An increase can therefore also change the valuation of the same product in other MAC (moving average cost) warehouses, even though their quantities remain unchanged. The unweighted average purchase price is a separate value: taking inventory does not add a new purchase to its calculation.
An inventory adjustment that reduces the balance does not change the weighted average price at the time of the event, but reduces the product quantity. The remaining quantity affects the average price calculation for the next increase.
The warehouse value also depends on the valuation method. FIFO uses the purchase prices of the remaining batches. MAC uses the company-wide weighted average price. If Current value per product is set for a batch product, that quantity is valued using it under both methods; this setting does not replace the purchase price used for the additional inventory quantity in the average price calculation. For more details, see how warehouse value and product cost price are determined.
Check the result
After saving, check both the selected batch's balance in the same warehouse slot and the product's total quantity in that slot. In the browser's Warehouse events view, verify the new Inventory row, product, slot and description. The event quantity is the batch's new balance, rather than the difference in balance: the event in the example shows 6, even though the total quantity decreased by two.
If necessary, also check the batch's status and purchase batch history and changes in the average purchase price. Allow the background calculation to finish before comparing monetary values, and check when the warehouse value was calculated. Successfully saving the balance does not mean that the average price and warehouse value will appear updated immediately.
The configured alert limits are also checked after an inventory adjustment. If the balance falls below the limit and an email notification is configured for the warehouse, the correction may trigger a notification. See product balances and alert limits. If the result differs from your count, investigate the sequence of events before making another correction: investigating a warehouse balance discrepancy.