How Inventory Counts work

Learn all about the Inventory Count feature

David Andrade avatar
Written by David Andrade
Updated this week

Autodesk Fusion Operations allows you to create and perform Inventory Counts, so that you can guarantee the accuracy of your current inventory.

If you want to perform Inventory Counts, talk to your account manager so he/she tells you what is needed to turn on the feature that enables you to do so.

Check below how this feature works.

Creating the Inventory Count task

1. Go to (1) Inventory, click (2) Inventory Counts and (3) +Add Inventory Count.

2. Personalize your inventory count as required. Below you can see what each field represents.

  • Code: unique identifier of the ‘Inventory Count’.

  • As of date: date considered for the inventory adjustments.

  • Warehouse: select one in case you want a specific warehouse to be counted.

  • Workers: choose the workers that will be assigned to the inventory count.

    • if empty, all workers can perform this inventory count.

  • Deviation Threshold: acceptable difference value that might occur from an inventory count versus the existing stock on the date defined ‘As of date’ (in percentage %).

If all these last 3 are left blank, the inventory count will be set for every warehouse, every location and all workers will be able to perform it.

In case a particular warehouse location is to be counted, you can activate that option (1) selecting the warehouse and (2) clicking ‘+Add Warehouse Location’.

In this case, new fields will be displayed:

  • Warehouse Location: if you want to filter your inventory count in a specific location of the chosen warehouse.

  • Product: select one in case you want to count a specific product in the selected locations.

  • Lot/Batch Number: you can also filter your inventory count by lot/batch number by inserting the desired one here.

For now, we’ll create an example to move on with the explanation of this feature: code ‘RTX Count’, for November 30th at 5:00 PM, counting all locations from Warehouse 'WH-BHM', by workers Mary and Theresa, with a 10% Deviation Threshold.

How to perform and record a Inventory Count

Now that you created an Inventory Count, it's time to perform and record it.

You can do so in the back office (as it is explained below) or on the mobile device, in the ‘Inventory Count’ button - you can learn more about this button here.

1. Go to Inventory (1) > Inventory Count Records (2) > +Add Inventory Count Records (3).

2. To create the record, you’ll be asked to fill the ‘Inventory Count’ code, ‘Warehouse location’, ‘Worker’ that is counting, ‘Creation Date’ of counting, ‘Product’ and ‘Quantity’ counted, and ‘Lot/Batch Number of the product.

3. Once you’re done filling these fields, you can ‘Save Inventory Count Record’, ‘Save and Continue Editing’ or ‘Save and Add Another’.

Check your Inventory Count Records

After you’re done counting your inventory, you can check the data collected by the workers.

Filter by the data that best suits your search: ‘Start Time’ and ‘End Time’, ‘Inventory Count’ code, ‘Product’, ‘Warehouse location’ and ‘Worker’. You’ll be shown the inventory count records for the filtered data.

Summary and Analytics

You can check the analytics or the summary about the data you just collected on the buttons shown in the picture below. These can be found after you open the Inventory Count which data you want to analyze.

Summary

In ‘Summary’, you can check the inventory count entries you performed for the selected Inventory Count. You’ll be shown a table with the ‘Warehouse’, ‘Warehouse Location’, ‘Product’, ‘Lot/Batch Number’, existing ‘Inventory’ in the ‘As of date’ previously defined, ‘Count’ performed, ‘Difference’ between ‘Inventory’ and ‘Count’, and lastly ‘Difference Percentage’.

This last field will take into account the ‘Deviation Threshold’ value defined. It will be green in case the difference is 0; black in case the difference is acceptable within the deviation threshold; red otherwise (you can check the deviation threshold defined in the ‘i’ button – in our example, we defined 20% for warehouse ‘Receiving’ and 0% for ‘Warehouse A2’).

After analyzing the inventory count summary, you can decide whether you want to ‘Create Adjustment Inventory Movements’ or ‘Create Recount’. In case you create a recount, a new ‘Inventory Count’ will be created for everything that is not within the threshold for each warehouse.

After performing a recount task for one location, you’ll be able to see its result in the ‘Summary’ tab. Check the image below to see how the summary looks after we create a recount for ‘1B.RXT-2’ in location ‘WH-BHM - AA10’ of 3 units.

If you create adjustment stock movements, the system will create the necessary adjustments for the inventory level to meet your inventory counts.

Also, in the summary screen, there’ll be a warning mentioning you have performed stock movements.

Note that you can only create adjustment inventory movements once per Inventory Count.

Analytics

In ‘Analytics’, you’ll be able to analyze:

  • ‘Inventory Deviation’ graphic, showing deviation in units and percentage per product.

  • ‘Absolute Deviation Percentage’ gauge.

  • ‘Top 5 Deviations’ list.

You can also export several files about your Inventory Count:

  • Inventory Count: exports data about the Inventory Count that was created.

  • Summary: will export all data on your summary page to an excel file.

  • Missing Counts: will export a file with the stock not counted for that Inventory Count.

  • Counted not Requested: all locations/products that were counted in this Inventory Count but not requested at first.

  • Counted Existing on Another Location: exports everything that we counted but that also exists in other locations not specified on the Inventory Count.

FAQ:

1. Will the inventory movements, generated upon selecting the button "Create inventory movements", have costs associated?

Only the 'sent' inventory movements will have costs. These cost are calculated based on the average cost of the product multiplied by the number of units sent.

For the 'receiving' movements, there will be no cost associated since the system cannot determine the value of received materials.

Therefore, we recommend reviewing the costs associated with the inventory movements created in this context.

If after reading this article you still have some doubts, feel free to reach out to us through our Live-chat feature, or directly to your CSM.

Need help? Request a Fusion Operations expert to contact you here.

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