Scheduled Inventory Count in a System without barcodes
Hi! My company is a small to medium sized AV Production company. My bosses would like to perform an inventory count, but we operate without any scanning/RFID tags. Our current workflow is paper based, and things are not reconciled at all on a regular basis. What steps of the Scheduled Inventory Count workflow will not work for us?
At first glance, it seems that I will be printing out a complete list of our inventory, counting each line item by hand, and then later entering the quantity counted into Flex item-by-item. Am I correct in thinking that we can't do reconciling? Is there any way they can assess shrinkage without physical scaning?
Thanks. I am a technician, not a warehouse or inventory worker, so this is a new area for me.
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Hey Aaron,
Specifically, using Flex's Scheduled Inventory Count module would be very difficult without having scanning capabilities. It would require a lot of copy and pasting barcode numbers into the module. Also, with unserialized items, it can be oddly restrictive in the quantities you can enter to update models during reconciliation.
I would probably recommend printing off some sort of Inventory report (ex. Inventory Export) for your record of current counts. Then go through and update counts in Flex (multiple possible strategies with this). Then print off another inventory report to compare quantities, possibly using a spread sheet formula to show differences.
There are quite a few details and steps mixed in with this, but I thought I would stop there and let you process my suggestions. You can also reach out directly if you want personalized help. Obviously you can chime back here on the thread as well.
Aaron Horn
Consultant (endorsed by Flex)
aaronjhorn@gmail.com
615.335.1225 -
Thanks for your insight. Is there a way to edit Quantities for multiple items in a single view in Flex? Several different places in Flex, such as the Inventory Manager, seem to show lots of info for multiple items, but don't seem to have Qty. or allocated as an option. Opening and closing each individual inventory item just to edit the quantities is going to be time consuming.
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There is, but it's not in the user interface. It's a service that is done by Flex or endorsed consultants like me.
Regarding non-serialized models, it would involve filling out a spreadsheet for your part with updated quantities, and then Flex or I update the system. I can't remember at the moment if the function overwrites On-Hand & Allocated, or just Allocated. But if you decide to pursue it, that can be tested easily to make sure. But we can't update both On-Hand & Allocated with different numbers through this strategy.
With serialized models that need to be adjusted, we can update whether their Decommissioned, Out of Commission, Presumed Missing, Sold, and a few other fields. Again, this would involve filling out a spreadsheet for the process.
- Aaron Horn
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