ERP Consultant Blog

Dreading Year-End Physical Counts?

Written by Eddie Diaz | Wed, Nov 05, 2014

Eliminate Year-End Physical Counts and Stop Dreading the Process!

Businesses this time of year are planning their wall to wall physical inventory counts.  Some have likened it to going to the dentist; they hate to do it, but it’s a necessary pain to endure.

Is this your process?

One day a year, a group of your employees count (quantity, weight, etc.) and record every item (goods, materials, supplies, etc.)
It takes:

  • Planning and preparation
  • Execution- searching, counting, comparing data
  • Analysis of results
  • Possibly stopping shipping and receiving
  • Possible overtime pay

*Businesses that struggle with inaccurate inventory data, large year-end adjustments of physical inventory results, or a lengthy annual physical inventory process should consider adopting a cycle counting program or improving the one they have. A properly implemented cycle counting program can raise the performance and efficiency levels of a manufacturing or distribution business.

What’s cycle counting?

It is the process of continually validating the accuracy of the inventory in your system by regularly counting a portion of your inventory, on a daily or weekly basis, so that every item in your inventory is counted at least several times a year
Some companies started manual cycle counting earlier in the year, but it soon became overly time consuming and lacked automation. 

CertiPro Solutions Automates Cycle Counts

CertiPro Solutions is a Sage Development Partner who has created an enhancement for Sage 100 and Sage 500 Automating Inventory Cycle Counts spreading out the counts throughout the year vs. to just a few times a year.

The Automated Inventory Cycle Count (AICC) Module will eliminate businesses performing the tedious task all at one time. Every working day, the AICC will generate a count sheet and send an email to employees who do the counting. The generation of these count sheets will be based on predefined schedules set by the user for each inventory item in the AICC Planner program.

In this program, each inventory item can be assigned a cycle count (for example, 4 times a year). The program will then generate the count sheets to determine which items should be counted each day in order to distribute and complete the number of cycle counts throughout the year. 

Automating Daily Counts will:

  1. Increase inventory accuracy. An inaccurate inventory can cause out of stock items, which result in late deliveries to customers and the potential loss of business.
  2. Help catch Inventory discrepancies sooner.
  3. Focus on fast moving items, or costly items, count by inventory ranking
  4. Trust your Inventory
  5. Increase operational efficiencies
  6. Review your variances and instantly define inventory to recount or submit your variances for inventory adjustment.

The Inventory Cycle Counting process is considered one of the most manual processes in Sage 100 ERP and Sage 500 ERP Solutions. 

Learn More?  Click this link or video below for Automated Cycle Counts Demo