Counting stock: bin cards and stock counts - Pacten Guides
Two different tools, often confused. A bin card answers “how did this item get to this number?” A stock count answers “is that number still true?”
THE BIN CARD
One item, one location, every movement
A running record you read, not one you edit.
Under Supply → Bin Card, choose an item and a location and you get every movement that has touched it, in order.
PO receipt — stock booked in against a purchase order.
Received — stock booked in generally.
Sold — units that left through a sale.
Transfer in and Transfer out — movement between your own locations.
Adjustment — a correction, including the ones a posted stock count makes.
Tip
When a figure looks wrong, open the bin card before doing anything else. It usually shows exactly which movement caused it, and that is a faster answer than a recount.
THE STOCK COUNT
A dated event, not a live view
It has a lifecycle, and it can be audited afterwards.
Under Supply → Stock Count. A count is a record of a day, kept permanently, so an auditor can ask what you counted last quarter and get an answer.
1
Start a count
Choose the location, then how much of it to count — everything there, one category, only items that have oversold, or only items not counted recently.
2
Counting
Work through the sheet. In a blind count the expected quantity is hidden, so the counter writes what they see rather than confirming what they were shown.
3
Review
Expected against counted, with the differences visible. This is where a recount is decided, before anything is committed.
4
Posted
The count is committed and the adjustments are written to stock. They appear on each item’s bin card as an Adjustment, so the correction is traceable to this count.
Watch out
Posting is the moment stock changes. Before that a count is a piece of paper; after it, your inventory figures have moved. Review the variances first — a posted count with a mistyped quantity has to be corrected by another count.
A count that is started and not finished can be abandoned rather than posted. It stays on the record as abandoned, which is honest, rather than disappearing.
CHOOSING
Full count or cycle count
You do not have to close the warehouse.
Counting everything is the thorough option and the disruptive one. Counting by category, or only the items that have oversold or have not been counted in a while, spreads the work across the year and catches the same drift — which is why those scopes exist as options rather than requiring you to build a sheet by hand.
Back to the app
Warehouse, Purchasing and Imports — and which to open when.