We all despise inventory, what are the best practices that you’ve found

[homeprogreen]

Pretty sure I am not alone in despising taking inventory. I am pretty lazy about doing it and tend to do counts when I receive orders. When I get an order in of some items I will count and adjust the stock levels for those items and then add the new orders. The entire time I am doing it I keep saying that I really should do an entire inventory of items but I end up getting sidetracked. 

help me and others like me out here by giving us your best inventory practices and any tips & tricks you have found to speed up the process. 

[maxpete]

@homeprogreen this is such a GREAT question! I'm also curious to hear from other members on some best practices around inventory

Tagging @CCFactory, @Candlestore, @JK_Fiber_Art, and @TheRealChipA 

[Candlestore]

We have been trying to do everything with invrntory in Square.  This has where I gave up since I can not have A quantity for sale, a small stock area and then Overstock of large quantities of Items.  This led me to do a bunch of research on an inventory accounting system since QBs basically got rid of an affordable Desktop version and the Online version for Manufacturing was even more costly.   I have since put my Inventory items into Odoo.  With my inventory in Odoo I can actually have 9 on the sales floor, 48 in storage and 20 cases or 240 in overflow and see 308 of that item in stock.  With the odoo system I can count inventory of each item every X days weeks months or 1 a year.... my choice.  By setting things up this way I can count items in Overflow less and in my storage a middle ground and then sales floor areas more frequently.  Since I am just starting this with Odoo I am still learning it and have not done this for over a year.  Things I do not like so far the only thing I do not like is that Square and Odoo do not link automatically.  I can download the Items sales from Square and upload them into sales in Odoo but I am taking 1 step at a time.  So when a decrease in inventory happens Odoo can reduce inventory from my sales floor, storage or overflow areas as a default on where i set it up.

Currently We use it more as we but the total in Square.  Customer asks if we have more of the item, depending on how many we can see the total quantity in Square, and then show we should have X on the sales Floor, XX in the Storage area and XXX in the Overflow area of that item.   When we get more in we update the stock locations in odoo, and the totoal quantity in Square.  

I like that my bigger sellers I can count while its slow in Odoo and then the time frame I set resets, and slower sellers I do not have to count as frequently but still can see there locations.  When I am scheduled to count a certain item and i see the totals do not match I update Square with the new total.  Item might have been damaged and we did not notice it, or someone used a 5 finger discount or we donated the item.  

There is also an eaiser way of setting something similar up in Excel and Goodle Sheets:

Google sheets Video of Cycle counts :  Google Sheets 

Excel should be similar or you could save the google sheet as an Excel sheet.

[homeprogreen]

That seems like a very comprehensive why to do it and would give a very clear picture of what is on hand and where. Fortunately I don’t need to track it that closely for my shop 

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@homeprogreen ;

Yes that is very complete and complex, If I just need a count and not locations, I created a quick Spreedsheet in Google sheets.  

I used Chromebooks and Scanners.

Scan barcodes in to a column (Scanner set to goto next line {carriage return})

and another column if I just want to type in the amount

     So if have items all over the shrowroom I can scan each one, or if I have a shelf that has 10 items, I can scan 1 item and enter 10 in a different column

Then I have 2 more sheets, Tabs.... one is my square catalog (most Current) and the other pulls the Item name Token Squares Count and a New Count column if its different.

So I grab a basket a chromebook and a scanner.... scan items and can do unlimited scans, then when I am done with an area.  I can use the Count column to fill in the New Quantity for that token or Barcode in Squares Catalog csv file then upload the new quantities into Square.  Only catch is if I sell something I am Scanning, and forget to reduce the new quantity by amount I just sold.  This is why I try doing these on really slow days or after hours.  Since I already pulled the Current Catalog down I can use XLookup on both my created sheet and the Square catalog to get all fields to show the new count and then upload back to Square.  

It was a pain to setup but once I learned the Excel Google sheet formulas and created the working sheets, I just delete the previously scanned barcodes and everything else besides the download and uploads is all automated.

Here is what it looks like now:

I scan the Barcodes into the first column

  2nd and 3rd column if I am counting cases.... this shows 2 cases of 12 per case

  4th column is if it is easier to just enter a Quantity counted

All the Data on this page is automatically entered by calculations in google sheets

Token column is just Xlookup by barcode in the right from square tab ( Catalog Download)

The barcode and Unique barcodes, Total, and Count columns are from Scan Bar Codes Tab is from the Scan Barcodes Tab and minor calculations.  The right columns from Category off the page are all from the right from Square tab and are just Xlookups based on the Barcode.

As you see when I scanned Barcode 045544747653 and entered a total of 65 that transferred to this sheet.

When I Scanned 045544748018 and entered 2 cases with Quantities of 12 I got 24 for the total.

The Unique Barcodes column just counts how many times the scanner read the same barcode. 

using this formula =COUNTIF('Scan Barcodes'!A:A,B198)

This basically says count how many times the cell B198 appears in the Scan Barcodes tab in column A:A

The screen shot basically is showing a Google Workbook and the tabs in the bottom are different sheets in the same workbook.

I liked this when I had the description as a location in my warehouses.  Then I realized I had 200 of an item but might only have 9 in the showroom, 12 in storage and rest in over flow.  This kept me running when a person needed say 35 of that item.  Now I know to just go to overflow because my other 2 areas will not equal 35 candles for example.

And yes I have notes how to use this for others in my store.  

Like "<--Copy the Header then delete the data in the "Scan Barcodes below" colum when done replace header"

and : "DO NOT DELETE Barcodes on THIS Sheet Delete on "Scan Barcodes" Sheet ONLY!!!!"

I believe this will work with a cell or tablet and a bluetooth scanner, I have not tried this yet.  Did try it with a Form but was just faster as a Google Sheet and not form.

I just needed the more complex inventory for all my storage locations.  

[DinaLRosenberg]

I haven't ever done a full recounting.. we just go what says in square which isn't accurate (doesn't take into account loss/breakage)... but we have so many skus I can't imagine.

[homeprogreen]

It’s just me in the shop so I don’t have to worry about loss and breakage. What throws me off is if I do a warranty exchange and forget to go in and adjust the stock count. Or like the beverage cooler because I am constantly telling the delivery drivers to grab a cold drink on their way out the door 

[DinaLRosenberg]

we also do have theft - so a lot of times we are short by 1 or 2 of something which is annoying.

[TCSlaguna]

We typically do Inventory Counting Day on July 4th of every year using the Square for Retail iOS app, which allows you to scan an item using the phone's camera and count the quantity on hand. By having a few employees scan items, we are able to scan thousands of items in just a few hours. 

We also have managers do "spot checks" before receiving a purchase order so counts do not end up too far off. 

Inventory counts are never 100%, but by putting procedures in place the goal is to reduce discrepancies as much as possible. 

[DinaLRosenberg]

That's a great idea.. 

the idea of stopping everything to hand-count inventory (especially the tumbled crystals) makes me wanna cry

[phillipsrw]

There is always variances with our inventory, usually down to human error, so we do quarterly planned counts and during the slower periods we do counts.

Our biggest concern is having inventory showing as available online when its not available either through an error when inputting data or a miscount.

The other big one we can never get our head around is how can we use Square effectively to monitor things for our takeout items, like coffee cups, sauces, syrups. If anybody has a best practice for this would love to hear from you.

[GourmetOnWheels]

I do my inventory quarterly so at the end of the year I have it all ready for my taxes

René

[Donnie-M]

@homeprogreen I am going to say this for the Restaurant Folks:

STOP DOING INVENTORY

We all go around and order what we need.  Just take the last 5 or 6 weeks of your purchases and divide out and that will give you a cost of goods sold that will be within 1% of the real number if you take inventory and value it and do all the fancy steps of initial inventory + purchases - ending inventory to give you usage.

Just stop, save yourself the man hours.  If you need to track something, track key items, high dollar items, but those you would do daily.  Key item inventories are a control.

I don’t believe in taking inventory for (COGS) calculations.  Inventory management takes too much time, it’s complex, it’s often inaccurate unless done perfectly, and it’s only accurate for the day it’s taken, which makes it outdated the following day when you finally sit down to look at it.  KISS:  Keep it Simple and do rolling calculations like purchases divided by sales over longer periods, which gives more accurate data without the need for detailed inventory. Focus your time on effective systems and not wasting away with a clipboard and then finding an extra case of blue scrubbies the next day that cost 30$.

Just my restaurant 2c.

[CareyJo]

We do HVAC so for us it's a little different... we do inventory over the last couple of days of the year.  We do inventory prep the day after Christmas because we're usually closed.  He makes sure that the truck, trailer and warehouse are all cleaned and ready to go.  It's a cold day and sometimes really hard to deal with, but we do inventory on New Year's Day.  We're closed.  We don't celebrate that holiday often and I have to guarantee for tax purposes that it is genuinely that day in case we had an emergency and used parts the night before.  We have a method, we do it all in order, from one shelf to the next, from the trailer, to the truck, to the warehouse.

The most important step I have found to make inventory run smoothly is to label all of our incoming parts a certain way.  I'm consistent with each item and it makes counting go a lot faster later.  I use the name of the supplier we got it from, the order number and date.  The customer price is always marked so he knows what to charge, so it's super quick to divide by mark up and get my cost.  If I don't have a price, I have the order to go back to.  Easy peasy.

I also worked in a restaurant for over three years and was one of the managers.  I was also in charge of doing inventory.  I went in on Tuesday mornings at 6:00 am when no other staff would be there, to count.  I was alone.  No one to distract me or mess up my counts.  I would never recommend to stop counting, there's just too many errors that can occur and if you want your taxes to be right....

I had a clip board with a spreadsheet on it and I started in the freezer, when shelf by shelf, then through the walk-in, shelf by shelf, then out to the back of the house, etc.  The hardest part is creating the system and putting it into practice.  Once you've done it regularly it will become routine.  It takes 21 days of doing the same thing every day to make a new habit.  Doing something once a week or once a month will take longer.  But you will find that once you have a year's worth of inventory, you have that data to compare to so that you can estimate what you need to order.  It will help prevent over-ordering and make year-end inventory that much easier.  As my CPA says, the year is about what comes in verses what goes out.  If you start inventory on January 1 with whatever is remaining from last year, take inventory once a week or once a month, whatever is left on December 31 gets subtracted and you have part of your cost of goods sold.  Using this method will also help you identify waste from employees and save money on unnecessary ordering because you can compare it to your sales.  Hope this helps!

[punchyboutiqAZ]

We are a mobile boutique, we print our own graphic tees as well as purchase inventory.  We changed over to Square for Retail, use a hand scanner.  For the most part the inventory is right.  At events that might have a slow period I can do a quick inventory of what is in the trailer and since we don't carry any backstock anymore it makes it easy to get it up to date.

[PapyrusTreasure]

Is there a scanner you recommend?

[punchyboutiqAZ]

Hi, the one that I use is called socket mobile https://a.co/d/9z9gYoP this is an amazon link but you can google them to check prices, I think ebay even has some refurbished ones.  I love ours!  Makes it so much easier to do inventory!

[PapyrusTreasure]

Thank you!

[Bronze_Palms]

I LOVE INVENTORY.

One thing you will want to do is count everything you have and get the accurate counts into square. You will only  have to do this one time. Then, when inventory comes in, add that to your stock (inventory received). Then, once a quarter or once every 6 months, count what you have to make sure the numbers match up and you're good!

[DinaLRosenberg]

LOL you make it sound so simple. Right now we have 4200 individual products listed in our inventory. I'm not sure which of these are old.. how many we actually have, etc. Unfortunately the way inventory is, it's still currently too cumbersome to bulk edit and we are NOT exporting into Excel and reimporting it.. sorry- not doing that.

[Bronze_Palms]

I do inventory once a month and print out sheets that are then transcribed into the system. I match what we have on the sheets with what our system on square says, then I get them to match.