MTS #07B – Physical Inventory using Laptop or Tablet

SMARTSystem Management Training Series

Training Session #7B – Physical Inventory using Laptop or Tablet

Purpose:  To capture physical inventory counts using one or more laptops and/or tablets at multiple locations.

Keywords:  The following is a list of key terms used in the SMARTSystem that you should be familiar with and understand.

• SKU – Is an abbreviation for stock keeping unit that identifies a specific stock item in inventory. In the SMARTSystem, SKU can be your Product Code, the UPC or GTIN numbers.
• RECORD SELECTOR – Is used on some screen displays to highlight a specific record. It is the left most column and when clicked it highlights that record and shows an arrow symbol (>).

Pre-requisites:

• Laptop or tablet
• Wired or wireless connection to the Server
• Bar Code Scanner connected to the laptop/tablet

Overview:

The Physical Inventory process consists of 4steps:

1. Scanning –  the bar code of inventory items is the first step.  The bar code can be your product code, UPC or GTIN codes,
2. Stage – inventory scans from one or more devices so that like products from different locations can be consolidated, 
3. Close–  all Physical Inventory scanning programs to prevent changes during the posting process, and
4. Post–  inventory quantities.

The Physical Inventory program is selected from the Inventory Menu:

          INVENTORY > Physical Inventory

this sub-menu displays the following screen:

Scanning:

Using the bar code scanner, scan the item bar code and the information from the bar code will be displayed in theSKU field in the top portion of the screen above.  If the code is found in the Inventory Table the product description will be displayed in the Description field and the cursor is positioned in the Quantity field.

You can Back Tab from the Quantity field to enter a repetitive Shelf Location / Note, then tab to the Quantity field and enter the item count.

This is repeated until all items are scanned and accounted for thereby completing a section or scanning area.

You can print a list of scanned items by clicking the Print button or Export them to Excel.

Items you have scanned and shown in the list have been automatically pre-staged for the next step.

Stage:

The scanned products from each laptop or tablet are staged for consolidation of like products using the Inventory Reconciliation Program.  

The next thing, after everyone has completed their scanning, is to select the Inventory Reconciliation program:

          INVENTORY > Inventory Reconciliation

Click the Manual Reconciliation checkbox to place this program in manual mode.

Click the blue button under Item Filter, Manage Staged Physical Inventory.  The following Manage Staged SMARTScan Data will be displayed with all of the items scanned including the Workstation, Date and Time Scanned, Scanned Code (SKU), Description, Shelf Location/Note and Quantity.

When this screen opens the *Selected checkbox on the left is set to include all of the scanned items and quantities for transfer to the Inventory Reconciliation program.  You can uncheck any item that you do not want to include in this process or delete the line item.

If you want to delete one or more lines click the Record Selector (holding the Shift key you can highlight multiple lines) and press the Delete Key on the keyboard.  This will remove the highlighted lines from the scanned items on this Staged screen.  The screen below shows a highlighted line before the Delete Key is pressed.

At this point, if you do not want to continue you can click the Exit button and close the scanned information without losing it. You can also make changes to the line items, including Quantities or deleting lines.

The second button on this screen can be used to export the items to Excel.

In a normal operation, the items scanned are automatically selected for you to transfer to the Inventory Reconciliation Quantity column for posting to inventory when you click the SAVE button.  Click the first blue button to Move Selected Items to Inventory Reconciliation.

You are now ready to Post your scanned inventory quantities by pressing the SAVE button.  Refer to Management Training Document #7 for information on the Inventory Reconciliation program.

Close:

Before transferring items to the Inventory Reconciliation program, make sure all scanning is completed and the Physical Inventory program is closed on all scanning devices.  If any laptop or tablet has the Physical Inventory program open the following message will appear in the title bar, as in the example below:

Closing the Physical Inventory scanning program on other devices is required to transfer quantities to the Inventory Reconciliation program.

When the transfer to Inventory Reconciliation is completed the following screen will be displayed indicating that the transfer process is done and the number of records transferred.

If this process does not complete normally and display the above message, the scanned records from the Physical Inventory counts are saved in the folder:

C:\WFSData\InventoryReconciliation

The file containing the Backup of the Staged Data, with date and time stamp looks like this in the above folder:

You can restart the Manage Staged data screen by selecting Get Data from XML button on the Inventory Reconciliation program:

Post:

Before clicking SAVE, set the checkbox to “Create Excel Spreadsheet on Save” to provide an audit trail of inventory items being Posted.

The scanned records will populate the Quantity column on the Inventory Reconciliation screen. See example below and the numbers in the Quantity column.   Click SAVE to process and update inventory Quantities.

You are now finished and updating your inventory physical counts is done.

Questions and Answers

If you have any questions or need support, please contact us at Support@Floralcomputer.com or call 727-483-5306 for assistance.