Barcode inventory count vs spreadsheet for QuickBooks Online

When a spreadsheet count is enough

A spreadsheet count is enough when you can key and check it by hand. That usually means one warehouse, few locations, a small number of counters and items the counter can identify by a number on the sheet. It also means time, because someone has to key every paper sheet back in and check it.

You can build the sheet from the Products and services list in QuickBooks Online. In Intuit's export steps, you go to Products & services, then More, then Run reports, then Export/Print, then Export to Excel. The export has no location column, and Intuit's note inside the file says its Quantity on Hand is calculated at the time you export.

The location column is yours to add. For a blind count, also leave Quantity on Hand off the sheet the counter holds. The columns worth adding are laid out in the physical inventory worksheet guide. If you only want to check some locations on a schedule, that is a different job, covered in cycle counting vs physical inventory count.

If your company shows an Inventory counts option under Products and services, Intuit's instructions have you enter a New Quantity for each product in the count and finalize, which creates an Inventory Quantity Adjustment. Intuit's instructions have no step for recording a location, assigning a counter, recounting or approving a variance, as the Inventory Counts article sets them out.

Whichever way you count, the adjustment form that changes the books takes one quantity per item.

Where keying the sheets back in goes wrong

The risky step with count sheets is keying them back in. Four things go wrong there, and each has a fix that needs no tool.

• A number is retyped wrong. Have a second person check each entry against the sheet.
• An item number is typed two ways, so one item ends up on two rows. Copy item numbers from your item list instead of typing them.
• A quantity lands on the wrong row. Keep the entry sheet in the same order as the paper sheet.
• A sheet never comes back. Number the sheets and keep a tick-off list of the sheets returned.

Here is a case that the tick-off list catches. Item 1042 sits in Aisle 4, rack B and in the overflow zone, so two counters fill in two sheets. One sheet says 12 and the other says 5. If the overflow sheet never comes back, only the 12 is keyed, and against books of 17 the count shows a 5-unit shortage the warehouse does not have.

The full reconcile by hand is written out once, in the year-end count guide. If your totals still disagree with the books, see why your QuickBooks inventory does not match the warehouse.

Where Count fits

InventoryWare Count imports items and locations from CSV, XML or Excel files and exports them the same way.

On the phone, the counter confirms the location first, by scanning or typing its label. The item step appears only once the label matches the location in the plan. A scanned barcode that matches one item goes straight to the quantity step, where the counter enters the counted quantity on a keypad.

The phone camera reads eight barcode formats: Code 128, Code 39, EAN-13, EAN-8, QR, Data Matrix, Codabar and ITF. An item with no barcode label can be found by typing at least two characters of its item number, description, alias or barcode, then picking it from up to 20 matches.

Counting on the phone needs a connection. Each count is saved straight to the server when the counter saves it. If the phone has no connection, the save is refused, nothing is cleared, and the counter saves again once connected.

Count prints location labels as a PDF. It does not print count sheets, so if you still want paper, you keep printing sheets from your own spreadsheet.

The variance report lists each item with a variance, the location or locations where it was counted, its snapshot quantity, counted quantity and percent variance, and who last counted it. The count history by location report shows the date counted and who counted. These reports can be exported to Excel and PDF.

QuickBooks Online does not track inventory by location within a warehouse, so the location lives in Count (see QuickBooks holds a quantity with no location and the inventory limitations overview). Count connects to QuickBooks Online and imports items with their quantity on hand. When the count plan is complete, Count can create one Inventory Quantity Adjustment in QuickBooks Online from the approved lines of items linked to a QuickBooks Online item. We call that a send.

Count's rule is this: nothing posts while the count is running, and nothing posts until a manager approves the discrepancy; only approved lines post; nothing nobody counted is zeroed automatically; posting from a partial count is not available. If a later sync makes an item's counted total match the QuickBooks quantity, that line drops out of the send, and a line that is still discrepant keeps its approval. An item with no QuickBooks link is skipped at send.