Inventory guide

How to Run a Stock Count With Just a Phone

Stock counts used to mean closing the shop, printing a 30-page checklist, and a Saturday afternoon with a clipboard. With a phone-based inventory app, a 500-SKU shop can finish a full count in under an hour without closing. This is the playbook.

Step 1 — Freeze movement

Pick a slow window (early morning, after-hours, between deliveries). Stop receiving and stop selling for the duration of the count. If you can't fully stop sales, count the back stockroom first while the front keeps trading, then count the shop floor after closing.

Step 2 — Walk the room in a fixed order

Pick a starting corner and walk every shelf in the same order every time. The order does not matter — consistency does. Counting twice in different orders is what catches the items you skipped.

Step 3 — Scan and count

For each product: scan the barcode, type the count, hit save. The app records the counted quantity, marks the SKU as "counted today", and moves on. No spreadsheet rows to find. No SKU lookups.

Step 4 — Review variances before closing the count

Open the variance report. Anything where counted ≠ expected is either a real shrinkage event, a receiving error, or a recount. Sort by absolute variance and review the top 10 lines first — they are usually clerical, not theft.

Step 5 — Apply the adjustments and log a reason

Confirm the adjustments. Each one writes a stock-history row tagged with a reason (shrinkage, damage, miscount). Over a few cycles, the reason breakdown tells you whether to invest in cameras, retraining, or better receiving discipline.

Bonus — Cycle counts beat annual counts

A full annual stock count is high-effort and outdated by the time it ships. Counting one shelf or one category every week ("cycle counting") spreads the work, surfaces problems sooner, and removes the need for a single stop-the-business event each year.