Physical Inventory Basics

Do as much of your physical inventory as possible while the store is closed. If the store is open, you can sell items but do not do any receiving, sending, moving, shelving, or pick lists of any kind.

An average user can scan several hundred items per hour. During an inventory it is common for users to scan 2000 – 4000 items. Seasoned users in a well-maintained location with standardized labelling can scan up to 10,000 items in a 6-hour period.

RECOMMENDATION: If it is your first time scanning an inventory, do a test of this process before inventory day. Install cradle driver, install data reader, scan a small section of inventory. Upload the scanner data and save a file.

1. PREPARATION
   1. Install the inventory software onto the computer to which the physical scanner cradle will be attached. This could be a FieldStack POS machine or a laptop/desktop. Should be Windows 10 or above.  USB ports on a laptop are generally easier to access and more available than ports on a FS POS.
   2. FieldStack will provide a link to the physical inventory software. Navigate to the Drivers\Windows 10 folder and run CP210xVCPInstaller_x64.exe and complete the setup. The install wizard will walk you through the installation.
   3. Plug the scanner dock's USB cable into your computer. From the Control Panel > Devices and Printers, you should see this device installed:
       
      
      
2. SCANNING INVENTORY
   1. Give a charged, powered scanner to each person involved in the inventory.
   2. Assign each user to a section or row.
   3. On the scanner, choose Collect and press one of the blue buttons to enter.
   4. On the primary screen input the following:
      1. Location – change the input to alpha and use legacy phone/texting process to spell out an abbreviated section name e.g. “ROCK”, “GIFT”, HOME”, “WALL”
          The section name can be the item category or something that relates to numbered end caps, featured product walls, spinner racks, or particularly numbered bins. It is limited to a maximum of 5 characters.
      2. Category
         1. Use 100 for regular stock
         2. 200 for floor/under bin
         3. 300 for back room
         4. 400 for counter/hold shelf etc. (not in section)
      3. User– This is for reference of who scanned what. Used for reference a different abbreviated name/number should be assigned to each user or use numbers from the back of the scanners if present.
   5. Press one of the blue buttons to get to the next screen. The QTY to scan will default to 1. We recommend scanning items as single units until you have done this a few times. If you enter a different qty on this screen it will default to that for all items scanned after. If QTY is changed from 1, you have to go back and revert it to 1 after the item is scanned or inventory for following items will be very off.
   6. Press one of the blue buttons to get to the next screen. It will say “Barcode:”
      1. Scan each label or new condition item barcode one at a time using the yellow button to activate the scanner’s eye. Barcodes printed on products will be assumed new.
      2. If you have used items, only a printed FieldStack label can be scanned as that label also contains the condition of the item within the barcode
   7. Before you start scanning a new section, use the ESC key to back out and enter new Location and Category information
   8. Use some kind of marker to denote which bays/bins/sections have been scanned so that another user does not come by later and repeat what was done. Post-its, paper notes, or colored slips of paper will work.
   9. All items should be scanned. Unscanned items will become variances.
   10. If you make a mistake when scanning, notify your inventory manager so that they may pass along the information when the inventory file gets processed. If an item was scanned twice, make note of the barcode and correct inventory. For sections that were scanned as the wrong location or category, make note of the barcodes of the first and last items in that section and what the correct information is (Example Rock/100) so it can be fixed when the file is processed.
   11. If your scanner runs out of or low on power, put it into a cradle to power it.
       
       
        
3. UPLOADING SCANNER INFORMATION
   1. To pull data from the Cipher Lab scanner, place your scanner into the connected cradle
   2. Run the file Data_read.exe in the Scanning\ folder (You can copy and paste this file to the desktop or anywhere else that is convenient for you).
   3. Below are the standard settings. IMPORTANT: Make sure the Save Mode is set to APPEND or your upload from one scanner will overwrite data previously saved. By default, it will be set as Overwrite – be sure to change to APPEND
      1. Change Interface to CRADLE-R
      2. Change COM port to port listed for the Cradle in “Devices and Printers” (usually COM3)
      3. Set Save Mode to APPEND
       3b. Check Add Line-Feed and check Add Carriage return to each record
       4. On File Name Rule click on Customized. Name your text file whatever you like after clicking Browse. Make sure you are saving it to a location where you can locate it when finished
      RECOMMENDATION: Save your data to a file synced with Google Docs or Onedrive. Both will save version history of your file. In case you accidentally use the Overwrite selection, you can revert your file to the previous version and you will not have to scan the entire store again.
      If you are uncomfortable using Append to save to one file, upload and save the data from each scanner to a separate file and deliver them to FieldStack as a batch of files.
      5. Click on OK
       6. Data will move from the scanner to the single data text file (sample view below)
      
      7. Continue uploading (appending) each scanner’s data to the text file until all scanners are empty of information and all items in the store have been scanned
      8. When the uploaded scanner is removed from the cradle, it will prompt you to delete the data on the scanner. Delete the data. Otherwise it will be included again in the next Append upload.
      
      Below: Sample of imported data as .txt file
       Shows Location, Category, User, Quantity, UPC/GTIN/EAN, and Time.
      
       

4. DELIVER INVENTORY DATA TEXT FILE TO FIELDSTACK

1. After completing all item scans and uploading the data from all scanners, find the text file on the computer you have uploaded each scanner to.
2. Email your inventory text file to Support for upload. Be sure to include the start and end times* of the inventory as well as any mistakes that need correcting. We will alert you when the inventory has been loaded/updated in your POS system.

*Start and end times help us denote the inventory that was on hand during that time. Changes to inventory like sales, which occur during or after, will be treated differently depending on the time the inventory was completed.