Stocktaking is the process of counting your stock with the aim of making it accurate and/or verifying it. A major difference compared to individual stock corrections is that during a stocktake a larger group of items is counted, while at the moment of counting nothing is yet changed in the actual stock levels. Only at the end of a stocktake (or part of it) are the final stock levels updated or corrected.
The stocktaking process comes with several challenges, such as the period in which the stocktake takes place, ensuring that everything has been counted, and understanding how those counts relate to the current stock levels. At a certain point, uncounted stock must be zeroed, either before or after the stocktake. The following procedures explain this in detail.
RetailVista does not yet support cyclical stocktaking. Cyclical stocktaking means performing stocktakes throughout the year in small sections. The reason this is not yet possible is that we do not reliably know where items are located geographically. With cyclical stocktaking, you fully stocktake a small zone. Anything not counted in that zone (and therefore no longer physically present there) should then be zeroed afterwards. This method requires dividing the entire shop into zones, and every time the shop layout changes, these zones must be recreated. For garden centres — our main target sector — cyclical stocktaking is difficult to implement due to large floor areas, vast assortments and regular seasonal changes. The challenge is not primarily technical, but lies in the operational requirements expected from the retailer to maintain accurate zone information for the entire product range.
For now, our stocktaking procedures apply to the annual stocktake of your store.
Preparation for Stocktaking
Good planning is essential before starting a stocktake. Planning determines which employee scans which part of the shop or warehouse. You must avoid having an area counted by two or more people, and you must avoid areas being missed entirely. We advise dividing the shop into sections, such as aisle numbers, shelving numbers or zones. Clearly agree who is responsible for each area. It helps to have a master list of all zones that must be counted and to tick them off as they are completed. Do not allow two or more employees to work in the same aisle or zone. Keep these areas relatively small. Once all aisles and zones have been marked as completed, the physical stocktake is finished and you may proceed with various checks and the finalisation process.
Clearing Old Stocktake Entries
In addition to clear instructions and planning, it is important to delete any old stocktake entries. Ensure that the stocktake entry file is empty.
Scanners
Stocktaking is carried out using scanners — specifically online scanners connected to the internet via Wi-Fi. Every count is saved directly into RetailVista. The advantage is that immediate checks can be performed, such as whether an item has already been counted, and that the exact timestamp is recorded. RetailVista uses this timestamp to correctly process sales that occur before or after the count in the final stock level. If you count 10 units at 10:00 and a customer buys 1 unit at 11:00, the processed stock level becomes 9.
User Accounts
Creating user accounts in RetailVista is free, so do not limit yourself. Give every user their own account. Also ensure that the “Mobile Devices” are not tied to fixed user accounts. When everyone logs in with their own credentials, it is always possible to trace who counted what. This helps with identifying counting errors and your accountant will also appreciate it, because even after processing, the original counts can still be viewed.
Does the Shop Need to Close?
No, absolutely not. Since the exact time of each count is recorded, there is no reason to close the shop. Yes, small exceptions may occur when customers pick up an item at 10:59 and put it back at 11:01, but this is considered “noise”. Closing the shop for one or two days, losing turnover and risking that customers go to competitors is not justified.
Counting Errors and Double Counting
As mentioned, good planning is key. Still, mistakes can occur when someone scans the wrong aisle or zone. RetailVista can be configured to display a warning if an item has already been scanned. Anyone accidentally rescanning an aisle receives an immediate notification. This is controlled through the setting “Automatically add quantity”. By default, a user is asked whether the new count should replace the previous total or be added as an additional count. If the automatic setting is enabled, the new count is always added as an extra stocktake entry.
Retrieving Counts After Processing
Counts are not permanently removed after processing. They are marked as processed and therefore hidden, and cannot be processed again. However, via “item statistics”, it is still possible to view the counts of a specific item. It is also possible to export a full stocktake to Excel, which is particularly helpful for accountants performing sample checks.
Zeroing
An important part of stocktaking is zeroing the stock. This can be done before the stocktake or afterwards. We strongly advise doing it afterwards. If you zero beforehand and a webshop integration exists, all stock levels will show as 0 and items may disappear from the webshop. Another reason not to zero beforehand is that stock levels will appear extremely distorted during the stocktake, making it impossible to understand real stock levels.
Shop Stocktake
Stocktaking the shop is done using the stocktaking app in RetailVista Mobile. Every item must be counted. If an item has already been counted, a message appears asking whether the new count should be added as an extra entry or whether previous entries should be removed. This also happens when the same item appears in multiple locations in the shop. If it appears where it should not, it likely means the same area was already counted.
It is important to know the correct stock unit (SKU). In almost all cases, this is the consumer sales unit. For example, if a box contains 24 units, the stocktake quantity should be 24.
Warehouse Stocktaking
A stocktaking always consists of a warehouse and a store stocktaking. If no warehouse is present, this procedure can of course be skipped.
Stocktaking in a warehouse is carried out using the same application within RetailVista Mobile as for normal stocktakings. The difference is that after scanning an item barcode, a warehouse location barcode must also be scanned. The quantity entered afterwards is the number of units counted and present at that warehouse location.
It is important when scanning warehouse items to determine how the stock unit is structured (also called SKUs, Stock Keeping Units). In almost all cases, the stock unit will be based on the sellable number of units to consumers. This means that for a pack of 24 units, the sales unit is 1 unit, and the stocktaking quantity should therefore be recorded as 24 units.
In very exceptional situations (for wholesalers supplying exclusively B2B), RetailVista can be configured to count a box as the stock unit. In that case, the counted stock would be 1 unit if 1 box is present.
A warehouse location can be of the type ‘pick location’, ‘bulk location’ or ‘storage location’. Storage locations in particular are often difficult to count because they usually contain large crates with many different items (sealed or unsealed) placed in a single location. These crates should not be unpacked for stocktaking. Our recommendation is to automatically convert these warehouse locations into stocktaking entries. This can be done either before or after the stocktaking, as it does not affect the final operation. One consideration for doing it before or after is that a scanner alert could appear if the same item from the storage location is also scanned in the store or warehouse. By adding these storage locations afterwards to the stocktaking, such alerts will never appear on a scanner as a result of duplicate items from storage locations.
At this moment, it is not yet possible in RetailVista to automatically convert the contents of storage locations into stocktaking entries. If you contact us, we will execute this task in the database for you. We expect this to be resolved as part of the January 2025 RetailVista ERP update.
Posting Stocktaking Data
Stocktaking of items takes place in a ‘temporary’ database. By this, we mean that stocktaking of items has no impact on ongoing store operations. All stocktaking data is stored in a temporary database, which will need to be processed at a later stage. In addition to not affecting current store operations, this also allows for various checks and adjustments to be performed on the stocktaking data. Ultimately, these temporary stocktaking records must be posted to the actual stock management system.
Preparation for Posting
Before stocktaking data can be posted, it is very important to print a discrepancy report and a non-stocktaken items report. The discrepancy report immediately shows where differences exist between counted stock and the current stock in RetailVista. Small differences are usually not problematic, but large differences may indicate items that have not been counted or have been counted multiple times. The ‘non-stocktaken items’ report is very similar to the discrepancy report but only shows an overview of items that still have stock in RetailVista but have not been stocktaken. This may indicate that these items were forgotten during counting, especially when the stock level is higher than just a few units.
Posting
Once the control reports have been created and reviewed, the stocktake data can be posted. It is possible to post only part of the stocktake data, but we recommend not making a selection unless there is a very good reason. When posting, adjustments are made to the stock if the counted quantity differs from the recorded stock. For example, if the counted stock of an item is 10 units and the recorded stock in RetailVista is 12 units, a stock adjustment of -2 units will be made. This applies not only to store stocktakes but also to warehouse stocktakes. If a difference is found at a particular warehouse location between the counted quantity and the recorded quantity in RetailVista, a stock adjustment will be applied to that warehouse location.
Note: For warehouses, the stock adjustment of a warehouse location works slightly differently in a stocktake than a regular warehouse stock adjustment. A normal warehouse stock adjustment results in a background transfer record between the store and warehouse. For example, a warehouse location adjustment from 10 to 12 units would create a transfer of 2 units from the store to the warehouse. The total stock of the item at the location does not change! An adjustment to a warehouse location from a stocktake, however, does not create a transfer; it is an actual correction of the stock. The warehouse location quantity will increase or decrease, and the total stock quantity will also change.
In the RetailVista Spring 2025 update, it will be possible to choose whether to post warehouse or store stocktake data during the posting process.
Mutations during Stocktaking
Sales and stock mutations continue during a stocktake. RetailVista takes this into account by adjusting historical stock levels.
Example (shop sales):
If 10 units were counted on 1 January but RetailVista showed 11, a correction of –1 is applied. If 2 units were sold on 2 January, the final stock becomes 8.
Example (warehouse mutations):
If 10 units were counted in a warehouse location but the system registered 11, a correction of –1 is applied. If 2 units were later moved out of that location, the final stock becomes 8.
If an item is counted multiple times in the shop (e.g. stored in multiple places), RetailVista adds all counts together and uses the timestamp of the latest count when checking for later stock mutations.
Zeroing Stock
Zeroing stock is part of the stocktaking process. For all items that are not found in the store (and/or warehouse), there may still be stock recorded in RetailVista. The zeroing process sets the stock of all items that were not counted to 0 in a bulk operation.
Although it is possible to zero stock in bulk beforehand, we recommend doing this after processing the stocktaking. There are several important reasons for this. The first is that zeroing beforehand leads to a large movement in stock, making it appear as if suddenly no stock is available on that day. Any connected systems (for example, webshops) would then also receive no stock information, which often results in items being unorderable or even not displayed on the webshop.
An even more important reason is that it would then no longer be possible to print a discrepancy report between the current location (store/warehouse) stock and the counted stock. This discrepancy report provides important insight into whether all items have been counted. If the store stock of an item is much higher than the counted stock, it is likely that the item was not counted or not fully counted. Conversely, if a counted item is much higher than the store stock, it has probably been counted multiple times.
If the discrepancy report can no longer be printed, it becomes virtually impossible to determine whether a stocktaking has been carried out correctly.
Post-Stocktaking Zeroing
For every item that has not been stocktaken, the stock must ultimately be adjusted to 0. This indicates that the item is no longer present. When zeroing, the stocktaking period must be specified. If no stocktaking data can be found for an item with stock during that period, the stock will be set to 0. A distinction is made between store and warehouse. When zeroing store stock, the system searches for store stocktakings only, i.e., stocktakings without warehouse locations. When zeroing a warehouse location, the system searches for stocktakings with a specified warehouse location. It is possible to zero the store separately and the warehouse locations separately, as illustrated in the following screenshot.
How stocktakings are processed depends on how they were conducted and on business preferences. For example, it is possible to first stocktake only the warehouse and post the results, and then stocktake the store (or vice versa).
How Store Zeroing Works
A store zeroing sets the stock of the store stock position to 0. This automatically reduces the total stock. However, this does not automatically set the total stock to 0. If warehouse stock is still present, it remains unchanged, and the total of all warehouse stock will still be included in the overall stock.
How Warehouse Zeroing Works
A warehouse zeroing sets the stock of all warehouse locations to 0. As shown in the example below, it is possible to zero only a specific warehouse or even parts of a warehouse. In this example, the stock of the entire ‘T’ warehouse is set to 0, which also reduces the total stock. If the store was already zeroed before a full warehouse zeroing, the total stock of an item will be zero afterwards.
Zeroing Period Date
In the next section of the zeroing screen, you will be asked for the stocktaking period. RetailVista will attempt to suggest the stocktaking period, but it is important to verify that the suggested period is correct. In the example above, the stocktaking took place from August 10 to 16, 2024. If in doubt, it is better to choose a slightly wider date range rather than one that is too narrow.
The zeroing date is the date on which the stock should be adjusted to 0. RetailVista takes into account sales that occurred during the stocktaking period. Any sales that occur after the zeroing date do not affect the stock level on the zeroing date. For example, if the counted stock on August 16, 2024, was 100 units, and on August 17, 10 units were sold, the historical stock on August 16, 2024, will be set to 100 units, and 90 units will be displayed as stock as of today.