Easing the Pain of Physical Inventory Counts

A Practical Guide to Physical Inventory Counting and Cycle Counting

Every company that buys, sells and/or uses physical products deals with the pains of keeping accurate inventory records. The recent uptick in eCommerce sales, evolving customer preferences, and unanticipated supply chain disruptions have converged to make inventory counts especially critical for manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers and eCommerce companies.

An integral part of any organisation’s internal control environment, inventory counts tend to be an all-hands-on-deck, manually-intensive affair that takes place once a year. Often extending a week or more, the process requires operational shutdowns and interrupts fulfillment processes
as employees work to count one of the business's most valuable assets: its physical inventory.

In order to make accurate budgeting, operating and financial decisions, managers and other stakeholders need correct inventory count data to work with. Physical inventory counts are a necessary evil. Publicly-traded companies, for example, must ensure their financial reports are accurate. That means auditors and corporations must perform physical inventory checks before the last day of the company’s fiscal year.

Conducted manually, physical inventory counts are both time-consuming and error-prone. When someone has to physically touch or scan inventory during the put-away, inventory check, or pick processes, for example, errors are bound to surface. Finding, counting, and recording each item is time-consuming enough, but the fact that those items might be stored in multiple places throughout the warehouse or storeroom adds even more time to the process. Even when the physical count is completed, rectifying any discrepancies, figuring out what went wrong, and then implementing procedures to avoid repeat mistakes takes even more time.

This business guide will explore the key inventory count challenges that companies are dealing with now, show how regular, scheduled cycle counting year-round can ease these pains, and discuss how a unified, cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution enables high inventory accuracy year-round.

Download this business guide to learn how to make your physical counts less time-consuming, more accurate, and more cost-effective. This business guide explores the key challenges that companies face with physical counts, as well as: The benefits of cycle counting to quickly address issues and drive faster, more accurate counting. How an inventory management system efficiently tracks stock while saving time and money. The top cycle counting best practices to avoid challenges once the strategy is adopted.