Guides
Warehouse stocktaking and cycle counting, explained properly.
Four practical guides for anyone who runs, plans or has to justify a stock count: the procedure for a wall to wall, how often to cycle count a class of stock, the eight causes behind a discrepancy report, and the arithmetic finance will challenge in a business case.
A count you cannot afford to repeat is not a control. It is an annual apology.
Every figure is either standard industry practice or Sentispec's own deployment data, and the ones from deployments are labelled where they appear.
Forty stocktaking and warehouse inventory terms are defined in the glossary. Product questions, from throughput to price, are answered in the FAQ. How accuracy is measured and raised, across every method rather than one product, is covered in inventory accuracy.
- Recording unit data sheetDimensions, weight, battery, camera, temperature range and platform requirements. PDF, no form.
- How to run a warehouse stocktakeThe full procedure: planning and cut off, zoning, count sheets versus scanners, blind counts, reconciliation and the post mortem.
- How often should you cycle count?ABC classification, a worked frequency table by class and value, and what auditors expect to see.
- Causes of stock discrepanciesEight root causes, from receiving errors to system timing, each tied to what shows up on a discrepancy report and what to do about it.
- The business case for stocktaking automationHow to build the internal case: cost baseline, savings categories, risk, who has to sign, and what to pilot.
Next step
Talk through your own count, not a generic one.
A 30 minute meeting to go through how you count today and where the time and the discrepancies actually go.