Correcting Mistakes in a Physical Inventory (Part II)

Tip: Adjusting for double-scanned items during a physical inventory count.

The previous two tips of the month described how to use reports to check a physical inventory and how to adjust for overlooked or "missed" items during a physical inventory count.

This month's tip shows you how to adjust for items you have mistakenly scanned twice.

For simplicity we'll again focus only on Aquafina 20-ounce bottles of water provided in cases of 24 assumed already to be part of the store's inventory. Our task is to perform a spot physical inventory of this item to compare its quantity as recorded in CDBWin (book value) to the count on the store's shelves (physical value).

Step 1: Finding the problem

In our hypothetical sample, the Quantity on Hand resident in CDBWin is 264 as is displayed in the Inventory Maintenance window shown below (on the Setup menu, click Inventory > Item (PLU/UPC/SKU > select the item > Edit):



To compare the above book quantity to the item's physical count we are going to scan the item in the store, send the inventory session to the HDP application and view an Exception report. A detailed explanation of this process is located in the Physical Inventory QuickStart Guide. Keep in mind that a best practice for spot checking is performing the count at times of low sales activity, ideally at the beginning of the day. This helps ensure the most accurate result.

To view our Exception report after the inventory session has been sent to the HDP application, with the HDP application open, we:

1. Click Physical Inventory. The inventory session, which should contain all the 20-ounce Aquafinas scanned in the store, appears in the HDP window (1):
   
   
   
   We also must:
   
   
2. Select the correct site (2).
    
3. Select the appropriate criteria (for our example, Dept. range 4.05) (3).
    
4. Select the correct processing date-the last closed CDBWin shift (4).
    
5. With the inventory session selected, in the Report Options group box, click List Exceptions by (5).
    
6. Click View. The Exceptions report for our example displays:
   
    
    
7. The above report shows there are 24 more units in the store (Physical Qty)  than have been recorded in CDBWin (Book Qty).
   
   This is suspicious. Why would there be 24 more units-exactly one case-than what CDBWin shows? So we send someone to recount the cases by hand and find that there are only 11 cases (containing 264 items)-the count CDBWin is showing-not the 12 (288 items) that are displaying on this report. We determine that one of those cases must have been scanned twice. This could have happened, for example, if one of the cases, perhaps stored in a location separate from the rest of the cases, was unwittingly scanned by a second employee (providing a good argument for organizing the items in your store effectively). Glad we caught it before we posted our inventory to CDBWin!

Step 2: Correcting the problem

We now need to correct the count:

1. On the File menu of the HHT, click New Inventory.
    
2. If desired, type an Inventory name and make sure the Site # is correct. Click OK.
    
3. Scan one case of water. In the Qty box, enter -1. This is to offset the one (1) case that was double-scanned. (To enter the minus [-] sign, either tap it using the onscreen Input Panel (keyboard) or type FUNC+O on the keypad of the device.)
   
   
   
   
4. Tap Close, then on the Send menu, tap Inventories.
    
5. Tap Login. The transaction is transferred to HDP.
    
6. When  the HDP application is opened and Physical Inventory clicked, the new inventory session appears directly above the first one (1):
   
   
   
   
7. To produce an Exceptions report with an accurate variance, we must:
   
   
   • Select List Exceptions by in the Report Options group box.
      
   • Select both inventory sessions in the HDP window by clicking on them while holding down the CTRL key.
      
   • Click View to display the Merge Physical Inventory prompt:
     
     
      
   • Click Yes. In our store the item and book quantities now match, meaning there are no exceptions, so the following message displays:
     
     
      
8. After we click OK to put away this message, we can confirm visually that the variance has been corrected and will post as 0:
    
   • Select both inventory sessions while holding down the CTRL key.
      
   • In the Report Options group box, click List Scanned Items Only.
      
   • Click View. The Exception report displays. The Qty Variance now reads 0.
     
     
   
   
9. Our spot check is finished because there is no adjustment to post. If our desire is to post the merged inventory session to CDBWin, we would close the report, and with both inventory sessions still highlighted, click Post to display the Merge Physical Inventory prompt:
   
   :
    



10. Click Yes and the merged session posts to CDBWin. To see the posted adjustment, on the CDBWin Daily Work menu, we would click Sales/Receivables > Open > select the adjustment from the list > OK > the "Line Items" tab, where 0.00 Qty displays.
    
    
    
    
11. Though this adjustment is zero, we would like to remind you that in most real-world cases there will likely be a positive or negative number here. This makes it very important to tag and close the transaction on a separate shift to make sure your inventory book quantities are correct.

For more information...

A detailed look at creating and posting an inventory transaction can be found in Chapter 3 of the HDP6 User's Guide.

Next Month's Tip...

We'll take a quick look at CDBWin's mutli-item promotion feature for handling combo and mix-and-match promotions.

For Past Tips of the Month...

Consult the Tip of the Month Library now sorted by subject and by date.