Conducting a physical inventory count offline [deprecated]

Modified on Sun, 21 Jan at 3:44 AM

DEPRECATED: This article has been replaced by and updated set of documents and videos you can access here: Overview of Inventory Counting in Cloud Retailer

Overview

There are numerous reasons why one would want to do an offline inventory count. One popular reason is that you do not have access to the internet in a specific location.

Procedure

Prior to continuing, please read Conducting a physical inventory count.
I will assume that you'll be editing a spreadsheet document on a mobile device such as a laptop.

There are a few important things to remember.

The count must be completed before or after business hours.
Please do not process any sales until after you finished your counting.
You can find more details about this here under the heading "WHAT HAPPENS IF THE STORE IS OPEN AND I SELL PRODUCT WHILE COUNTING?"
Once you finish your counting, you can upload the file at any time.
Offline inventory counting is much slower and is prone to errors. I suggest renting or purchasing a Cloud Retailer handheld device.
You will need to make sure the file is in the correct format before uploading.

Let's get started!

It is beneficial to have a list of products that you will be counting. You can obtain this list by navigating to "Reports > Product List".
Filter the report as needed and also, you won't need all the columns, I suggest removing some to make it a cleaner look.
The absolute minimum you would need is "Product Code" and "Description".
Once you have your selections, export the file to Excel. If you do not have excel, you can export to CSV.
You should now have a file with your filtered products. Let's open the file, it will have a name similar to "Product List 19-07-16 0942".
If you opened the file in Excel, you will receive a "Protected View" message. Click on "Enable Editing" to continue.
We need to change the header to make it compatible for when we import the file.
- Change "Product Code" to say "ProductCode" without spaces.
- You can leave the "Product Description" the way it is.
- Create a new header under column C, name it "EntryDate".
- Create a new header under column D, name it "Quantity".
- Under column C "EntryDate", enter the date of the count for each row. In my example, it is "10/09/2016".
  The date will be the same for all products in this file. It should appear similar to the example below.
  If you counted your inventory and the end of the business day, increment the EntryDate by 1 day. In this example, it would then be"10/10/2016"
Now you are ready to start counting. Go down each row and enter the quantity.
If you have counted none of a product, enter 0 as the quantity.
When you have finished your counting, you can now import the file. This is outlined in Conducting a physical inventory count article under "IMPORTING A FILE".

Conducting a physical inventory count offline [deprecated]

Overview

Procedure

References