Before starting your first inventory with Xentral’s Mobile Inventory App, this article is designed to give you an overview on the general inventory process and the aspects that you should consider in advance to ensure a correct and efficient process.
Important
Follow the instructions in this article carefully and make sure you have considered all the points before you start inventory in your warehouse.
The preparatory steps in Xentral should be carried out conscientiously to avoid serious stock variances and the interruption of other important business processes, such as shipping. The preparatory steps are described in detail in the chapter Necessary steps before inventory. At the end of the article you will also find a checklist that you can use to make sure you have taken care of everything.
With the Mobile Inventory App, inventory follows the following rough sequence:
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Counting storage locations one after another: Warehouse staff move from one storage location to the next, and once the stock of one storage location has been counted, the counting process continues at the next storage location.
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Organizing inventory runs: Before inventory is taken, the app determines in which warehouse the counting takes place, which storage locations should be counted, which person counts the stocks, which person checks the counting results and (optionally) which name the inventory run should be assigned so that it can be identified as easily as possible later in the evaluation in Xentral.
Tip
For generally large amounts of data (large number of products and/or storage locations), you should divide the inventory into several runs to ensure smooth processing and error-free downloading of the count lists.
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Working in teams of two: Ideally, inventory is carried in teams of two, with one person (the counter) operating the Mobile Inventory App on the MDE device. A second person (the controller) oversees the process to ensure that inventory is not double counted or forgotten.
Warning
As the number of products within a storage location increases, the performance of the Inventory App can slow down noticeably, as experience has shown, affecting constellations where there are more than 300 products per shelf.
Therefore, we recommend dividing storage spaces with a particularly large number of product into multiple (virtual) shelves, especially POS warehouses, where an entire store is managed as one storage location. By dividing them into multiple shelves within the storage location, you can better structure the quantities of products counted while ensuring that the app remains fluid and reliable. If necessary, check out the Creating a warehouse structure (Xentral Warehouse Management) article to learn how to make changes to your warehouse structure.
Several steps need to be taken before inventory begins. This is important to ensure that the Mobile Inventory app can correctly capture all products and storage locations and that the information required for this is fully maintained in your Xentral instance. On the other hand, there are specific actions that need to be taken right before inventory begins, such as globally disabling your process starters and processing any outstanding sales orders to avoid inventory errors.
Before taking stock, it is necessary to ensure that your product master data is up-to-date and complete, so that the products can be correctly registered and identified by the app.
Under Sell > Products > Open product > Details, check the following points:
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Correct product numbers and EANs
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Correct product description
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No duplicate product numbers or EANs
If your products have external product numbers from online stores or other sales platforms, it is important to ensure that your MDE device can correctly record and assign these numbers during the inventory process.
You can find the relevant setting in Sell > Products > Open product > Tab: External numbers. Make sure that the Barcode scanner and Active options are both activated. Also, make sure that these options are activated when creating new external numbers.
Tip
For already existing external numbers, you can even more easily check whether the checkboxes are activated by opening the module External item numbers via the Smart Search and checking the list displayed there.
Globally disabling the process starters in Xentral is essential so that no sales orders are handed over to the dispatch center during inventory or any other actions that affect inventories continue to run automatically while inventories are being counted, so take this step with extra care to avoid erroneous inventory counts and tedious rework. Do not reactivate the process starters until the stocktaking process is completed.
Important
Do you work with a fulfillment service provider? Then agree in advance on the exact date and time period of inventory. While the process starters are disabled, no more data will be transferred. In the worst case scenario, this can significantly disrupt the workflow at your logistics company or mess up the shipping process. Therefore, inform your fulfillment service provider and other providers who are supplied with data via process starter in advance.
Follow these steps to disable the process starters globally:
After disabling the process starters in Xentral, the next step is to complete all outstanding sales orders that are still within the logistics process .This ensures that products that are immediately needed for customer orders still leave your warehouse, i.e. are posted out and shipped, so that these stocks are not incorrectly entered during inventory.
You should pay attention to the following modules and check very carefully which sales orders, pick lists and picking runs are already actively found in the logistics process and bring them to completion:
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Shipping center (Stock > Dispatch center) including active picking runs (found in the Picking runs tab in the Dispatch center module)
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Pick list profiles (Stock > Pick list profiles)
From the moment you disable the process starters globally and complete all sales open orders, no actions should be performed in Xentral, so consult with your staff and inform your team, especially the logistics and shipping department.
Warning
While the inventory is being carried out, no sales orders may be processed and no stocks can be adjusted. Thus, it is best to stop all work in the system and make sure to complete the inventory as soon as possible.
If this warning is not heeded and sales orders are still processed manually or stocks are adjusted, you will have to laboriously correct the stock afterwards and cannot efficiently return directly to daily business.
Now go through the following checklist to make sure you have made all the necessary preparations for inventory:
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Fulfillment service provider or logistics partner informed about the inventory
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Internal departments informed about inventory
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Required user access including QR codes and PINs for the Mobile Inventory App created
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All work in Xentral stopped