Opening count

Installing Stockly puts all of the shop’s stock into a single warehouse. As long as the goods sit in one building, that is the truth. As soon as part of them stands in a retail shop and the rest in a warehouse, it stops being true, and that is what an opening count is for.

What it does

An opening count counts one building and carves the counted goods out of the warehouse they are currently booked in. It does not move “the rest”, it does not derive balances, and it does not require counting everything. That distinction is the whole point of the mechanism:

Counted — moves into the warehouse the session is run in.
Uncounted — stays exactly where it was, with its bin-level accuracy untouched.

That is why counting can be done in sections: two racks today, three tomorrow, with sales running. An unfinished session breaks nothing, because it touched nothing that was not counted.

Example: a warehouse and a shop

Take the typical case. The business has a warehouse building and a retail floor. The location codes in the product field describe the warehouse — racks, aisles, levels. Nobody ever coded the shop floor, because goods simply stand on display there.

After installation it looks like this: there is one warehouse (named during setup after the building its codes describe, the warehouse) holding all of the shop’s stock, spread across the locations mapping created. The retail floor does not exist in the module, even though goods physically stand there.

The way out, in order:

Create a second warehouse for the retail floor.
Run an opening count in the shop, pointing at the warehouse as the source.
Count the shop — rack by rack, over as many days as it takes.
Post the session. The counted units leave the warehouse for the shop, and everything that was not counted stays in the warehouse on its shelves.
Only now does the warehouse’s book stock describe the warehouse alone, which is then verified with an ordinary stocktake.

Running it

Stockly → Warehouses → target warehouse → Operations → New opening count (next to New stocktake).

In the Set up the opening count dialog the source warehouse is named in Carve out of, the one the goods are booked in today. The field is required; without it the session will not start.

An opening count deliberately hides the settings of an ordinary stocktake (bin scope, tolerances, guided mode). They were not hidden for simplicity: they have no meaning in this mode, so showing them would be a promise the module does not keep.

The counting screen carries a reminder of the rule: what is counted is carved out of the source on posting, and what is not counted stays where it is.

Counting

Counting looks exactly like an ordinary stocktake: scan the product code, enter the quantity, optionally scan the location in the building being counted. The difference is in what the number means:

In an ordinary stocktake the number means “this is what is really here” and the module books the difference against its own figure.
In an opening count the number means “this is what is really here” and the module moves that whole quantity out of the source.

If the shop has no bin locations drawn yet, the goods land in the target warehouse’s unassigned bucket. That is a normal state: sellable, simply not described by a shelf yet.

Posting and the result

The session is finished with Post adjustments. Afterwards:

the source warehouse holds less by the counted quantity,
the target warehouse holds exactly what was counted,
product stock in the shop does not change: the goods changed building, not existence,
Warehouses → Movement History shows every movement: from where, how many, to where, under which session.

When the count exceeds the source’s book stock

It happens, and it is a normal measurement result rather than an error. The module moves as much as the source can give up and books the surplus as a positive count correction in the warehouse being counted. The total grows, because that is what the count found, and a count is evidence.

Reservations stay behind

Moving goods between warehouses does not move the reservation’s attribution. For a while an open order may therefore point at a building the goods have physically left — until the reconcile re-assigns it.

That appears to be a defect but is a deliberate choice: physical truth beats the bookkeeping record, and clamping the counted quantity to “free stock” would leave reserved units booked in a building they demonstrably are not in, and count them a second time here as a surplus.

Reverting a session

A posted session can be reverted: Warehouses → warehouse → Operations → the row menu → Revert stocktake. The revert reverses that session’s movements.

Common misreadings

“I will count the warehouse, it is the bigger one.” The opposite applies: the building being carved out is the one that is counted. The warehouse keeps its bin accuracy precisely because it is not touched.

“I have to count everything before posting.” No. What has been counted is posted; the rest is counted in the next session.

“I will map the shop first, then count it.” Mapping spreads goods across the shelves of one building, the one with the codes. For the second building the right tool is an opening count.