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How to fix a broken Physical Count
How to fix a broken Physical Count

A process to restore inventory numbers after a botched Physical Count

Brian Curtis avatar
Written by Brian Curtis
Updated over a week ago

In the event that you commit a Physical Count in error and create significant on-hand discrepancies as a result, you can restore your inventory using the following process. You will use a series of reports and adjustments to re-create your old numbers, starting with the big picture and then filling in the details. At the end, you'll use the file you create to upload a new physical count.

The basic formula you'll use to recreate your numbers is as follows:
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โ€‹(Beginning On-Hand quantities) - (Net Sales) + (Purchasing Received) - (Purchasing Returned) + (Transfers Received) - (Transfers Shipped)

You'll use Heartland Retail's reporting to generate each of these components, then combine the reports to build your upload file.

Before you can begin, you'll need to determine two basic pieces of information:

  1. Location: This is the location for which you want to reset your inventory quantities.

  2. Date Range: This should begin on the day you performed your physical count and end with today's date. If you are correcting a count done on the same day, you can select Today for both fields.

Step 1: Generate your data using Reporting

Start by creating the following reports. You can use the links to generate these reports by replacing [YOUR DOMAIN] with your Heartland Retail account name and pasting the resulting url into a web browser. (For example, if you login to https://[awesomestore].myheartlandretail.us, you would replace [YOUR DOMAIN] with "awesomestore".)

For each report, you'll need to populate the Date Range and Location filters with the correct information, as mentioned above. So if you're reversing a count you did today at your Boston location, you would set the filter values to "Today" and "Location >> is one of >> Boston".ย 


On Hands

Net Sales ( - )

Purchasing Received ( + )

Purchasing Returned ( - )

Transfers Received ( + )

Transfers Shipped ( - )

After you create each report, choose Export >> Excel.

Step 2: Crunch the numbers in your spreadsheet

Note: We are presenting a manual process here that should be accessible to someone with basic spreadsheet skills. It is possible to make the following much faster with advanced techniques such as VLOOKUP. It is also possible to automate the entire process described in this article using our API.

First, open your On Hands report. This will serve as the base layer, and the data from your other reports will either add to or subtract from this list.

Next, open all the reports marked with a ( + ) from the list above. Copy the data, without any header rows, and paste it at the bottom of the On Hands spreadsheet.

All the columns need to line up when you paste each report into the main list, as seen above.

Next it's time to address the quantities that need to be subtracted from your master list. Open all the reports marked with a ( - ) from the list above. For each item on the reports, do the following:

  1. Copy the Item # and search for it in the master list.

  2. Subtract the quantity listed in the source report from the one found on the master list.

In the event an item is not found on the master list, do not add it at this stage. Doing so would create a negative net quantity on the count file, which cannot be uploaded into Heartland Retail as part of the count. If the on-hand should legitimately be negative, you will need to make a single adjustment once this process is complete.

Once you have subtracted all the quantities in your ( - ) reports from the master list, save your file. It is now ready to upload into a physical count.

Step 3: Complete your new Physical Count

Start a new full store Physical Count in Heartland Retail. You'll only need one batch, and the source for that batch will be the file you created in the steps above. Import your new count file, confirm that the results of the count will be correct by looking at the items/quantities imported, and complete the count.

Your inventory is now fixed!
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