About StockTakes Process :

The stock take process in a warehouse serves the purpose of counting all the stock in all the slots across the warehouse. Unlike the cycle count process, the stock take is performed without any information about what items or quantities exist in any slots i.e. it is a blind count allowing the operators to provide the item details are found in each slot and their quantities. Each slot is counted a minimum of two times, or three times if the first and second count do not match.

NStock provides a feature to compare expected quantities from the ERP system with actual quantities counted. The totals quantities for each item are stored in stock valuation records. The results can be posted back to the ERP system. Every slot being counted is referred to as a stock take entry. After each entry is counted and the quantity is finalized, the total quantity of that item is summed up across all slots (entries) in the warehouse and this total quantity is set on the stock valuation record. After all items have been counted the stock take is marked as completed and the stock valuations can be sent back to the ERP system.

Summary of steps to complete a stock takes:

• Create a Stock Take on the NStock website. When using the Slots Based option, it will also create a stock take entry for each Slot setup on NStock. If the Slots based option is disabled, the stock take entries will not be created upon creating the Stock Take.

• Download Stock Valuations from the ERP system. These will contain the item details and expected quantities for each item. Stock Valuation is a term used within the NStock system, while the ERP system might refer to these stock valuations using different terminology e.g. D365 refers to the document that holds the items as a Physical Inventory Order.

• Operators start counting at each location using the mobile devices.

    o   Each location needs to be counted a minimum of two times. The first and second count need to be performed by different operators. A third 
        count may be required if the first and second counts don’t match.

    o   Once two of three counts match, the final quantity will be set on the entry (slot).

    o   Once the final quantity for the entry is set, the total quantity of the item is calculated for all entries that can contain the given item 
        This total quantity for the item is then set on the stock valuation record.

• Stock Take is marked as completed once all entries (slots) have been counted. This is done manually on the website.

• Stock Valuations are uploaded back to the source system i.e. ERP system.

• On the Stock Takes page one will be able to see all Stock Takes that exist on the system for the warehouse.

Stock Takes

This screen displays the lists of stock takes on the system.

The following features are available on this page:

• Search: you can search for a stock take by its name and filter the stock takes by a start and end date of when they were created.

• Entries: selecting a stock take and clicking the Entries button will open the page showing all the entries (slots) for the stock take.

• Valuations: selecting a stock take and clicking the Valuations button will take you to the Stock Valuations page that shows all the valuations downloaded from the ERP system. For example, when using D365 as an ERP system the valuations will be the lines on the Physical Inventory Order. These will initially contain the item numbers and expected quantity of each item. These will be updated by NStock throughout the stock take process as each entry (slot) has been counted. At the end od the stock take process, the valuations will be uploaded back to the ERP system.

• Assignments: some warehouses may not have slots. Such stock takes are not slot based, but product based. For example this to a retail stores. For Stock Takes that are based on Products we cannot rely on slots because they do not exist. For such stores or warehouses, the store may be split into only zones, aisles, and perhaps bays. The supervisor may still want to allocate operators to certain areas of the store to keep track of which areas are counted by whom. Selecting a Stock Takes and clicking on the Assignments button allows you to view and manage the areas (location groups) an operator is assigned to.

• Download: clicking the Download button on one of the Stock Takes will allow you to download the Stock Valuations for the stock take from the ERP system.

• Source: clicking the Source button on one of the Stock Takes allows you to upload the Stock Valuations back to the source system i.e. the ERP system. This button is only available once the stock take has been marked as completed.

• Edit: clicking the Edit button allows you to change the properties of a stock take.

• Delete: deletes the Stock Take from the system which includes all entries and valuations for the stock take.

CREATING A STOCK TAKE

From the Stock Takes page in NStock click the Create button.

This dialog will display the required fields for a Stock Take.

• Name: the default prepopulated name is the current date and time. However, the name can be changed to any value to identify the stock take.

• Offline: whether the stock take process on the mobile app will be counted offline i.e. the entries are downloaded to the device and only uploaded back when the operator is finished counting the entries that have been downloaded on the device. Unchecking this option will make the mobile app post every count back to the server on the fly as opposed to downloading and uploading entries in batches.

• System Driven: this setting only applies to stock takes that are being done offline. Enabling this setting requires stock take entries to be assigned to operators from the server (website) instead of allowing operators to assign entries to themselves from the mobile app.

• Slots Based: indicates that the warehouse does have slots and therefore the stock take will be prepopulated with entries. Each entry will correspond to a slot in the warehouse. This option should be left unchecked if there are no slots in the warehouse e.g. in a retail store for example. In such a case the stock take will be product based, meaning that we will only be counting products without knowing any specific slots of where the products are stored. When this option is left unchecked, the stock take entries will not be created when creating the stock take. Instead, the stock take entries will be created by the mobile app during the count i.e. the mobile app will not be downloading and updating entries, but rather creating entries. However, area assignments will be created for the stock take which will be a list of operators. Each operator will then need to be assigned to an area inside the store/warehouse.

Once you click OK the system will create the Stock Take which may take a few seconds.

Buttons

• Ok Button : Save new stock take details.
• Cancel Button : Close button.

Record buttons:

These are the buttons which appear after you select a record (stock take).

The Stock Take Entries can be viewed and managed by selecting the Stock Take from the grid and clicking the Entries button.

• Entries Button : This button will redirect the user to the Entries page, which will show all related records for selected device

• You will notice that an entry has been created for every Slot in the warehouse when using the Slots Based option when creating the Stock Take. You will also notice that the item details or quantities have not been set. The purpose of the stock take process on the mobile app will be to capture the item details and quantities throughout the process and plug them into these entries for us to know what items and how many of them exist in each slot. The following options are available on this screen:

Search:

o   You can search for any entry based on any of the fields by entering text into the Search text and clicking search. 
o   The entries can also be filtered based on the operator they are assigned to by selecting the operator from the Assigned to Operator drop-down.
o	Entries can also be filtered based on the Zone, Aisle, Bay, Bin and Level that they are located in.

Assigning entries to operators:

o System Driven: for a System Driven Stock Take, the entries will need to be assigned to operators for those locations to be counted by specific operators. Individual entries or all filtered entries can be assigned to an operator. An individual entry can be assigned by clicking the Assign button, selecting the operator and clicking OK. Multiple entries can be assigned by clicking the Assign All button which will assign all entries filtered in the grid to a specific operator.

When using either method, you will be presented with a drop down of all operators in the Site. Select and operator and click OK to assign the entry/entries to the operator.

o User Driven: If the System Driven option on the Stock Take is disabled, you will not need to assign entries to the operator because the process will be user driven i.e. the operator will choose which aisle in which zone they want to count. o Online: if the Offline option on the Stock Take is disabled, then the assignment of entries is not needed at all. Operators will instead just count whatever locations they want in any order and confirmation of counts will be sent from the mobile app to the server in real-time. The server will check and control which slots have already been counted and by which operator. Hence there will never be a case where an operator will overwrite another operator’s count. For example, if a location has already been counted the next operator’s count will be taken as the second/third count or the system will tell the operator that the location for the given slot has already been count (finalized) i.e. we already have two matching counts.

• Empty: one or more entries can be marked as empty in the same fashion as assigning entries to operators. This can also be done during the stock take on the mobile app. Marking an entry as empty indicates that the quantity is 0 and no item details exist for us to know what products are stored in these locations.

• Reset: entries that have been counted can also be reset in the same fashion. Resetting an entry clears all the item details and quantities for the entry/slot thereby allowing you to recount it.

• Delete: deleting an entry will permanently delete the entry from the stock take.

• Report: once the stock take has been completed a Report button will be available to generated and download a PDF report containing all the stock valuations.

• Properties: the following properties/columns can be seen in the entries grid:

    o   Slot: this is the full location name of the slot to be counted i.e. Zone, Aisle, Bay, Bin, Level.
    o   Assigned: the operator to which the entry is currently assigned to.
    o   Item: the item number of the product found in the slot. It is understood that every slot will contain only one type of item in a slot i.e. we 
         will not expect or cater for different products in the same slot.
    o   Description: the item description of the product in the given slot.
    o   Barcode: the barcode of the product in the given slot.
    o   Count 1: the quantity that was counted in first count as well as the operator that performed the count.
    o   Count 2: the quantity that was counted in the second count as well as the operator that performed the count.
    o   Count 3: the quantity that was counted in the third count as well as the operator that performed the count.
    o   Quantity: the final quantity for the slot i.e. this value is set once two out of three counts match. Once this value is set, the total 
        quantity for the item across all slots is summed up and set on the stock valuation record for the given item.
    o   Empty: whether the entry/slot has been marked as empty.
    o   Counted: the date and time of when the entry quantity has been finalized i.e. when two of the three counts matched.

• Valuations Button: After the Stock Valuations have been downloaded, they can be viewed by selecting the Stock Take from the grid and clicking the Valuation button.

Edit

This dialog will display the current details for a registered device operator.

Details

• Name
• Completed

Buttons

• Ok Button : Update stock take details.
• Cancel Button : Close button.

Delete

This button will prompt the delete device dialog:

The dialog will display the identifier of the device you are deleting.

Buttons

• Ok Button : Will delete the selected record.
• Cancel Button : Will close the dialog.