An inventory audit, or cycle count, is conducted when you must verify inventory counts for the entire warehouse or a specific set of locations. First, you must create an audit job in 3PL Warehouse Manager. Once the audit job is created, a warehouse worker begins the audit in SmartScan and completes the job in 3PL Warehouse Manager.

This article reviews how to perform inventory audits by item and by location from start to finish.

Creating an audit job

1. Navigate to Inventory > Audit Inventory in 3PL Warehouse Manager.
2. Select the relevant warehouse from the ‘Warehouse’ drop-down menu and click Create. 
3. Fill out the necessary information in the ‘Create Audit Job’ window. Fields marked with an asterisk are required to create an audit job. 
4. The location table shows where the selected SKU has been according to the ‘Item History Size’ field. If you don’t see a location listed, adjust the ‘Item History Size’ field. 
5. Click Save to create the audit job. It will appear in the grid in the ‘Open’ status. 

Auditing Inventory

Audit jobs are completed by warehouse workers using SmartScan.

1. Open SmartScan and select the appropriate warehouse for the audit job you want to complete. This needs to be the same warehouse that was selected when creating the audit job in 3PL Warehouse Manager. 
2. Select the Audit button to see the list of available audit jobs.
3. Select the audit job you’d like to start or continue.
4. Select and click a location from the grid.
5. Enter the ‘SKU/UPC’ and quantity manually, using the -/+ buttons, or by clicking Mark as Empty. 
6. If using barcode definitions defined in 3PL Warehouse Manager under Customers > Manage Barcodes, specify the relevant customer.
7. Scan the SKU/UPC barcode, or manually enter the SKU and tap Search.
8. Scan any associated track-bys, enter the Primary Qty, then tap Save.
9. Repeat Steps 6 and 7 for each SKU you need to count. Tap Location Complete when you’re finished at the location. 
10. Repeat Steps 5–9 for each location in your audit job.
11. Once you have performed a count for each location, tap Complete. The job no longer displays in the Audits grid, and the status changes from Open to Counted. Continue to 3PL Warehouse Manager to complete the remainder of the audit job.

Reviewing and confirming inventory audits

You can review your inventory audits in the ‘Audit Inventory’ grid. 

1. Navigate to Inventory > Audit Inventory, select the appropriate Warehouse, then verify that the audit job has changed from Open to Counted in the grid—if you are still logged in from the previous session, you may need to click Search to refresh the page.
2. Select the job from the grid, then click Review Jobs.
3. Review the jobs in the grid by expanding each row individually or by clicking the expand all view button, and make sure you have included all desired locations.
4. If you need to recount a location, right-click the location and select one of the following options. Note that if you choose to recount, the status changes to Counting and you must repeat the audit job with SmartScan.
   • Recount Everything: requires a recount of the entire job
   • Recount with Track-Bys: requires a recount of all items, including track-bys
   • Recount Location(s): requires a recount of all selected locations
5. If you need to see other locations containing the SKU or qualifier in one location, click the name of the item, then select Add location to Job to recount or Cancel.
6. Once you confirm the audits are accurate, click Reconcile Jobs to adjust the inventory by the variance, select the location(s) you need to adjust (using < Ctrl > or < Shift > to multi-select), then click Adjust System Quantities > Make Adjustments to finalize the job.
   

   If the inventory being audited is allocated to a transaction, you cannot reconcile the job and must unallocate the inventory before you can proceed with reconciliation.

    
7. A confirmation message appears, and the system reflects the new inventory counts.