Stock Count

Stock Count

A physical stock count — walking through your warehouse and writing down what's actually there — is reconciled against ERPNext via the Stock Reconciliation tool.

When to count

• Year-end — required for accurate financial reporting
• Quarterly — for high-value or fast-moving items
• Spot-checks — for items where you suspect discrepancies (theft, shrinkage, mispicks)
• After a system change — when adopting ERPNext or after a major migration

Cycle counting

Instead of one big year-end count, count parts of your inventory continuously throughout the year:

• Group items by ABC value (high-value items counted monthly, low-value yearly)
• Schedule a few items per week
• Catches errors faster, doesn't shut down operations

Running a Stock Reconciliation

Stock Reconciliation → New:

1. Purpose — Stock Reconciliation (for counts; Opening Stock for initial migration)
2. Posting Date — when you counted
3. Items table — for each item being counted:
   • Item Code
   • Warehouse
   • Current Quantity (what ERPNext shows — auto-fills)
   • Quantity (what you counted — you enter)

ERPNext computes the difference per row.

Download / Upload template

For large counts:

1. On the Stock Reconciliation form, click Download Template → get a CSV with current quantities pre-filled
2. Hand the printed sheet to your warehouse team to count
3. Update the CSV with counted quantities
4. Upload Template back into the same Stock Reconciliation
5. Submit

What happens on submit

• For each item where counted ≠ current:
  • A Stock Ledger Entry posts to bring stock to the counted quantity
  • A General Ledger Entry posts the value change to a Stock Adjustment account (gain or loss)
• The reconciliation is locked in audit history

Investigating discrepancies before submitting

If a count is way off (e.g., 100 short or 500 extra), investigate before submitting. Common causes:

• Stock movements not yet entered in ERPNext (paper trail behind)
• Movements in wrong warehouse
• Items in wrong location physically — count again
• Items recorded under different Item Code (variants confusion)

The Stock Reconciliation is your reset point — only submit when you're confident the actual count is correct.

Reports for verification

After the reconciliation, check:

• Stock Balance Report — confirms new quantities
• Stock Adjustment account in GL — see the total value impact

Common situations

• Found extra units — Stock Reconciliation; value posts as gain to Stock Adjustment
• Items missing — Stock Reconciliation; value posts as loss
• Found items in wrong warehouse — two Stock Reconciliations (decrease in wrong, increase in right) OR a Material Transfer