Full Inventory counts are typically completed at the end of the financial year in order to provide your accountant with an exact value of your inventory.

It includes every item in your store, including your storeroom and we recommend doing this outside of your usual trading hours.

Use the drop-downs below to learn how to complete a full Inventory count.

When to do a full inventory count

We recommend completing a full inventory count at the end of your financial year as a minimum. Your account may also recommend that you complete a full inventory count at the mid-financial-year point.

These are also beneficial to complete after very busy periods of trading, such as Christmas and Boxing Day, or Black Friday sales. It is also recommended to complete a full inventory count when selling your business.

As full inventory counts require you to count all items in your store, it is best practice to close your store during the count to ensure you get an accurate representation of your inventory levels.

Scheduling the count

With Retail POS inventory counts, you can schedule your counts in advance, allowing you to plan out the year and your team can see what they need to prepare and count.

To schedule a new count:

1. Navigate to Inventory > Inventory counts.

2. Click the Add inventory count button.

3. Set the Start date and Start time for the inventory count (this will default to today's date, and cannot be set in the past).

4. Select an Outlet to conduct the inventory count from the drop-down menu.

5. The Count name automatically populates.

6. Select Full count.

7. Click the Save & exit button at the top of the page to schedule the count. You can also click Start count to start counting immediately.

Preparing for the count

On the day before, or the day of, your inventory count, depending on how much you're counting, you'll need to prepare your inventory to be counted.

Each store will have a different process for this, but we recommend:

• Checking your barcode scanners to make sure they are functioning
• Tidying all areas you'll be counting, including any items on hold
• Turning all labels barcode-side out for easy scanning
• Printing new labels for any products missing labels

How to start an inventory count

Important

A full inventory count should always be completed when your store is closed. This ensures that no items are counted twice, or sold after they have been counted.

When you're ready to start your count, you can either start a scheduled count or start a new count:

Starting a new count

1. Navigate to Inventory > Inventory counts.

2. Click the Add inventory count button.

3. Set the Start date and Start time for the inventory count (this will default to today's date, and cannot be set in the past).

4. Select an Outlet to conduct the inventory count from the drop-down menu.

5. The Count name field automatically populates.

6. Select Full count.

7. Click the Start count to start counting.

Starting a scheduled count

1. Navigate to Inventory > Inventory counts.

2. Find the count you want to start in your Due list.

3. Click the count name. The Edit inventory count page will open. You don't need to worry about updating the date and time if it's wrong — Retail POS will update it to today's date.

4. Click Start count. The inventory count will commence.

You'll see a page with a list of all your items to be counted, as well as the expected count for those items. You don't need to count the items in the order they appear on the page.

Counting your items

Once you've started the inventory count, there are multiple ways to record your items. Use one of the following methods.

Scanning barcodes with a barcode scanner

If the device you're using to perform the inventory count (desktop or iPad) has a barcode scanner set up, you can simply scan the items into the inventory count to record them.

With quick-scan mode enabled, you can scan back-to-back barcodes to record one of each.

Quick-scan mode

Quick-scan mode enables you to rapidly scan each item's barcode in your store to add it to your inventory count. Your scanned item will automatically be counted as soon as you scan the barcode.

If you'd prefer to use the barcode to look up the item SKU and then enter the final count number before submitting it, un-tick the Quick-scan mode box.

Alternatively, you can scan the barcode once (with Quick-scan mode disabled), and then manually enter the count of each item.

Scanning barcodes using Retail POS's Scanner app

The Scanner app allows you to create and/or begin inventory counts and use the device's built-in camera to scan barcodes in order to record items.

For more information on using the Scanner app for inventory counts, refer to the Performing inventory counts in Lightspeed Scanner.

Manually recording and searching for items

You can perform the count manually, such as marking down the count for each item with pen and paper, searching for the item in Retail POS, and then entering the amount.*

*Manually counting your items increases the risk of error. Ensure that the correct items are listed and the SKU is recorded for each so that when entered, the amount is recorded against the correct items.

Once an item is counted

When an item is counted, it appears at the top of your counted list. It will have a tick next to it if you've reached the expected quantity. It will then appear in Your last counted items on the right-hand side of your screen. The number of items in your uncounted tab will also be reduced.

Your count will automatically be saved - you can see the latest save time at top of the screen above the Pause button.

Review and submit an inventory count

Once all your counts are submitted, you'll need to review your counted items.

Click Review to open the review page. Here there are five tabs:

• Uncounted: This lists all items where the total counted is 0. This includes items with an expected count of 0.
• Unmatched: This lists all items that had a count greater or less than the expected amount. This includes items where you expected a negative amount and counted 0.
• Matched: This lists all items you've counted where the total counted equals the expected amount.
• Excluded: Any items you manually exclude from your count.
• All: All items from each tab combined into one.

Review the items in your count, especially the unmatched and uncounted items. If you have discrepancies, you can:

• Tick the box next to an item, and choose to Exclude items from count by selecting the drop-down at the top of the list.

• Tick the box next to an item, and choose Recount items. This will set the count for these items to zero, so you can count the items again.

• Click Resume at the top of the page, and count the items again.

Important

If you resume counting, the item will still show the quantity scanned so far. Use the Recount items option on the Review page to reset to 0. Alternatively, on the count page, you can enter a negative quantity for that item in the quantity field to remove items, or to zero the inventory level for an item to start from scratch.

Trading while counting

If you were trading while counting, you will need to make any final adjustments based on sales or returns made during your count period.

If you sell or return an item after you've counted it, that item will need to be adjusted. For a sale, you'll need to decrease the count quantity by one in your inventory count. For a return, you'll need to increase the quantity by one.

If you sell or return an item before you've counted it, these items will have the correct inventory value but a discrepancy may appear on the review page (as the expected count would not have changed.)

Note

Any sales made when conducting an inventory count will still be correctly recorded in your sales history.

Submitting the count

Once you've checked and confirmed your count and are satisfied all items are accounted for, click Complete.

Next, you will need to confirm that you are finished with the inventory count. Remember, don't do this until ALL of your staff have completed and saved the counts on their devices. If you have any uncounted items, we'll alert you, as the inventory count for these items will be set to 0.

When you are sure you are done, click Submit.

Once you've clicked Submit, we'll start processing your count. This can take several minutes to complete, especially if you've got lots of items.

Once it's complete, the results will be displayed on the page.

You'll have three tabs:

• Unmatched
• Matched
• All

These will list your items, the expected amounts, the final counts, the change in units after your count, and any associated cost for that change (for example, if you're one unit short, it will tell you what that costs you).

Scrolling down to the bottom of the list will display your total changes in units and total changes in costs.

You'll see two figures for each of these - the total increases (for items where your count was higher than expected) and total decreases (for items where your count was lower than expected).

Exporting the data

Click the export buttons to get a copy of your results.

There are two options:

• Generate PDF report: This gives you a formatted PDF report, including the expected and final count, change in cost, and total value of each product's inventory after count for each product. You'll also have a summary with total changes for your whole count.
• Generate CSV report: This gives you a CSV file with a line for each product counted. You'll also have columns for the SKU, supplier code, expected stock and actual quantity, stock count difference, difference cost, and inventory value of each product's inventory after the count. This is typically used for importing into another system or for creating your own reports.

Abandon an inventory count

Sometimes, you may need to stop doing an inventory count that you've started. This may be because you've run out of time to complete it, for example, as an inventory count should always be completed in a short time period.

This is called abandoning a count. To abandon an in-progress count:

• Open the count on either the Edit inventory count or via the Review page.
• Click the Abandon button.

Abandoned counts will appear on the Cancelled tab of the Inventory counts page.

Review historical inventory counts

You can view historical counts and export the results at any time.

To view:

• Click the Completed tab on the Inventory counts page.
• Click the count you wish to open.

You may also choose to generate a PDF or CSV report on this page:

Important

Refer to our What is an inventory count and how do I complete one? guide for more information about inventory counts in Retail POS.

If you only want to count a portion of your items, you can instead perform a partial inventory count, which can be filtered by a number of metrics. For more on partial inventory counts, refer to the Partial inventory counts guide.