Blind inventory count and the QuickBooks Online worksheet

What changes on count day

The counter's sheet or screen shows the location, the items and a blank for the quantity, and nothing else the counter could count toward. The supervisor keeps the book quantities and compares the counted totals with them after the pass.

A counter who cannot see the expected number cannot count toward it. A consulting playbook lists blind counts, with no system quantity visible, next to rotating counters to prevent familiarity bias.

Say an item sits in aisle 4 on rack B and again in the overflow zone. The counter writes down what they find in each place, without knowing what the books say for the item in total. The how to do a physical inventory count guide covers the whole process.

Does the QuickBooks Online worksheet count as blind

The QuickBooks Online Physical Inventory Worksheet is a report. Intuit's reports article describes it as your inventory items with space to enter your physical count. The report lists each inventory item on one line with a Quantity On Hand column beside a blank Physical Count line, so a counter holding it can see the expected quantity and the worksheet is not blind as printed.

The report also has no location column. A blind sheet needs the item, the location and a blank quantity. The QuickBooks physical inventory worksheet guide goes through the report in detail.

Recounts are blind too

A recount of a location is another blind count. When you doubt a result, or a counter notes something odd about a location or an item, send a second counter with a fresh blank sheet. Show that counter neither the first count nor the book quantity. Use a different counter from the first.

When two blind counts agree and the books still differ, the question becomes why the books are off. Check for transactions that were never entered or were entered with the wrong date first, and book the adjustment after that. The remaining difference is an inventory variance.

See also how to reconcile variances after a physical count and the physical inventory count checklist.

Where Count fits

On the phone, the counter sees no expected quantity and no variance number for what they count. A manager can turn on count validation, which asks for a photo or a note on a count that differs; it is off unless turned on, and it is available only on a plan whose snapshot is not an aggregate baseline. The counter confirms the location first, by scanning or typing its label, and the item step appears once the label matches.

InventoryWare Count is built for one complete physical inventory count, and posting adjustments to QuickBooks from a partial count is not available.