Here are a few best practices and common questions about setting up inventory audits and cycle counts in 3PL Warehouse Manager. See these articles to learn more about performing inventory audits and scheduling cycle counts.

Best practices

• Stagger the timing of your daily picking and audit activities. We advise running audits after picking winds down for better data quality.
• Always use track-bys when possible. Without them, you miss out on valuable data, and variances cannot be reconciled. 
• Review audits promptly in the Audit Review grid after an audit is completed. This helps to avoid inaccurate counts as inventory amounts change after an audit. 

FAQs

Does allocated inventory affect audit accuracy?

 No, it should only affect the allocated count that is displayed in the audit review and summary.

What are track-bys, and why are they important during audits?

Track-bys are specific details about what was received, lot number, serial number, and expiration date being the three most common. If these are not collected when counting, then there is no way to reconcile the inventory.

For example, if less inventory was counted than the system thinks exists, how would it know whether to deplete the inventory from Lot A over Lot B if that information wasn’t tracked? You would need to redo the audit with track-bys enabled to reconcile the amounts. 

Can I run an audit without track-bys?

Yes, but you will not be able to use the reconcile feature when the counting is completed.

Can I recount individual lines in an audit?

Yes, you can mark individual lines as not counted and recount them.

Why does my audit show inventory as “not counted”?

You can skip locations or items when counting during an audit. The “not counted” status indicates that the worker didn’t count the location or item.

Why don’t some items or locations appear in my audit?

Auditing is done on what the system thinks is there. If the system doesn’t think something is there, it can’t show it.

Can I reconcile audits for quarantine locations?

Yes, quarantine locations are not filtered out when adding locations to an audit.

I had a cycle count scheduled, but no new jobs were created.

The cycle count automation can only create jobs when there isn’t an existing job for that item. Check if you have any existing audits and complete or close them for the new jobs to be automatically created.