Use inventory counts to reconcile inventory, determine shrinkage, and correct your inventory counts. You can do either full or partial counts.

Understanding inventory counts

Inventory counts measure discrepancies in inventory levels. Sales or added inventory don't change a discrepancy. For example, if you're short 2 hats, your adjustment will be -2 to quantity on hand for the hat. That doesn’t change as you sell items or receive purchase orders. The quantity on hand is still off by -2.

You can perform both full inventory counts and partial spot counts.

• Full count: Count all of your inventory at once. Any items you weren't able to count will appear in the Missed list. Find out why you missed them, and either enter a count for each item or zero them out by clicking Missed in the left menu.
• Partial/spot count: If you're only counting part of your inventory, you can filter categories, tags, or brands within the Missed list of the inventory count.

Special orders, layaways, and work orders shouldn't be included in inventory counts. Only count items in stock and ready to sell. An inventory count can't be imported or merged to another count.

Creating an inventory count

Before beginning an inventory count, we recommend correcting and exporting your Asset Report.

1. Navigate to Inventory > Inventory Counts.

   

2. Click + New Inventory Count.

   

3. Enter a name in the Name field.

   

4. If you have a multi-store account, select your shop from the Location dropdown. Once you add items to the count, you can't change the selected shop.
5. Click Save Changes.

You will be redirected to a new inventory count screen. Here, you will be able to count your inventory.

Counting inventory

You can count your inventory using a barcode scanner, printouts, or a spreadsheet import.

• Counting inventory using a barcode scanner

  Counting with a barcode scanner is ideal for smaller inventory counts, or when items are accessible to a device running Lightspeed POS.

  1. Begin scanning your items, or click the Enter scan mode button to begin scanning.

     

  2. You will enter Scan mode, and a pop-up overlay will appear. Scan mode adds scanned items to a Pending scans queue, letting you scan the next item while Retail POS processes the item.

     

  3. Use the barcode scanner to scan each item. Scan the same item multiple times to increase the counted quantity.

     If you have a large amount of the same item to count, click the Counted field next to the item on the list and enter a value from 1 to 99. For values larger than 99, scan the item again and apply the extra count.

  4. When finished scanning, click the X to exit Scan mode.

  Your counted items will appear in the Counted Items section.

  

• Counting inventory using printouts

  Printouts are ideal for medium-to-large counts. You can print a list of all items to count from the Print item list page. These can be given to staff to record quantities and then entered into Lightspeed Retail POS.

  1. Click Print Item List.

     

  2. Select a Sort by option from the Sort by item ID or Sort by Description lists.

     

  3. A new window will open with the sorted list. Print the generated list and mark the quantity of each item in the Count box.
  4. Once all items on the printout are counted, return to Retail POS. Enter each item ID on the printout into the ID field and the corresponding quantity into the Count field, then click + Enter count.

     

  Your counted item will appear in the Item Totals section.

  

• Counting inventory using a spreadsheet

  Importing items with a spreadsheet is ideal for large inventory counts. Items can be counted and quantities formatted into a spreadsheet (CSV or XLSX). These will be added to the count automatically.

  1. Create a CSV or XLSX spreadsheet. Name two columns ID and Count. Alternatively, you can download a sample file by clicking View sample file download template.

     

  2. In the ID column, enter the System ID, UPC, EAN, Custom SKU or manufacturer SKU associated with the item in Retail POS. You need to use the same ID type for each item.

     If you aren't sure what to enter in the ID column, navigate to Inventory > Item search, find the item, then click it to view item details. You can download information for multiple items at once by optionally using filters to narrow your list and clicking Export.

  3. In your inventory count spreadsheet, enter your items' counted quantities in the Count column.
  4. Save the spreadsheet as a CSV or XLSX file.
  5. On the Inventory count page in Retail POS, drag and drop your inventory count file into the Import items box. Alternatively, click Select file and choose the spreadsheet you created.

     

  6. When the File has been uploaded message is displayed, click Map columns.

     

  7. Ensure that your file and Lightspeed columns are correctly mapped.

     

  8. Click Verify file. Retail POS will check the import file for errors and when successful, display an Import overview.

     If there are errors in the import file, an error message will be displayed. Click Download this file, fix the errors, then re-import.

  9. Click Import.

     

  Your counted items will appear in the Counted Items section.

  

Reviewing and reconciling the count

Reconciling the count is when you change your inventory records to match your physical count. As you reconcile, a progress bar will track your real-time progress.

1. Click Missed. This displays uncounted inventory items. Items in this list have no inventory adjustments.

   If you're doing a partial count, there will always be items in this list.

   

2. To set an item to have a count of zero, click Zero beside the item. If you want to set every item in this list to have a count of zero, click the checkbox beside Zero Selected Items, and then click Zero Selected Items. This function adjusts your inventory records for all counted items.

   

3. Once finished zeroing items, click Reconcile.
4. When you're certain that your counts are correct, click Reconcile > Reconcile inventory.

   This action can't be undone.

   

5. Click OK.
6. A temporary banner will display stating the number of items reconciled.

   

7. Click Shrinkage to view how much inventory was lost due to shrinkage.

   

You can't reconcile inventory count discrepancies for archived items.

After finishing your inventory count, we recommend archiving any items with zero stock to clean up your item list.

Inventory changes during a count

After you complete your count, if any items are highlighted in yellow with a QOH Changed button, it means inventory changed after you entered the count for the item. This can include changes due to sales, purchase orders, transfers, or manual adjustments.

Clicking on the QOH Changed button will automatically take you to the Item History page, where you can see the reason for the quantity adjustment. If you're doing a count for a multi-store account, this change only reflects the store where you're doing the count.

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