Stock Counts

Stock Counts is a system that allows users to accurately count the number of items in inventory and seamlessly post the results to an external system. This ensures inventory data is kept up-to-date and synchronized across platforms.

Types of stock count

Stock Counts can be performed in various ways depending on the purpose and scope of the count.
Below are the types of counts supported and their specific details:

• Types:

  • full: To perform a comprehensive count of all inventory items.

    • All items in the inventory must be counted. Any item not counted when the stock count is submitted will be set to a quantity of zero.

  • cycle: To count specific parts of the inventory or store, or to count specific category of items

    • Requires specifying the items to be counted, typically by selecting one or more item categories.
    • Filters: Each filter can be designated as mandatory or optional:
      • Mandatory: Items not counted will be set to a quantity of zero when the stock count is submitted.
      • Optional: Items not counted will retain their current quantities.

  • control: To perform an ad-hoc count for a specific subset of items or locations

    • Provides flexibility to specify items or sections to be counted without predefined filters or schedules.

  • test: To simulate stock counts for training purposes.

    • Can be configured to simulate either a Cycle Count (by specifying items) or a Control Count (by skipping item specifications).
    • Test counts are not published to external systems when submitted, ensuring they do not affect inventory records.

Methods of counting items

When performing a stock count, users can choose one of the following methods based on their operational needs and available tools:

• Count the item once: Specify the total quantity of an item across all locations in one step.
  How it works: The user enters the total quantity for the item, covering all locations.

• Count the item by location: Count and record the quantity of an item separately for each location.
  How it works: For each location, the user specifies the quantity of the item. The system aggregates or maintains location-specific quantities.

• Scan and submit items individually: Each instance of the item in stock is scanned and submitted separately.
  How it works: If an item has a quantity of 5, the user scans the barcode and submits the count 5 times, once for each physical item. The system increments the count for each scan or submission.

Items to be counted

When performing a stock count, it's important to ensure that the list of items is manageable and relevant to the store's current inventory. Depending on the stock count type and filters applied, the system determines which items need to be included.

General rules for counting items
To streamline the stock counting process and avoid unnecessary effort, only the following items are included for counting:

Items part of the store's assortment:

• Only items designated as part of the store's active assortment need to be counted.
• This avoids including items that may belong to the category but are not stocked at the store.

Filtered items:

• For stock counts using filters, the included items must match the specified filter criteria.
• Example: One or more item categories, specific item IDs, or tags.

Relevant Stock or Transaction History:

• This is only active when using Hii Retail Stock service.

• The count list is optimized, reducing time and effort for staff.

• To further refine the list of items to count, one of the following criteria must be true:

  • System stock quantity ≠ 0:

    • Items with a non-zero stock quantity in the system are included.

  • Transactions in the last 30 Days:

    • Items with recorded transactions within the last 30 days are included.

Submit stock count

Submitting a stock count finalizes the process and ensures that the updated inventory information is shared with relevant systems. This includes both manually counted items and those automatically set to zero (if filters are mandatory).

What happens upon submission?

• All items counted are locked and submitted with their respective quantities.
• Items not counted
  • If mandatory filters are applied, these items are automatically set to zero.
  • If optional filters are applied, these items retain their previous quantities.

How and when will I get the data?

Once submitted, stock counts publishes events/data to PubSub. Other Hii Retail services, or external system using External Events, can subscribe to these messages.

Subscriptions

Tech	Subscription
Pub/Sub	stc.public.event.stock-count-completed.v1
External Events	stc.public.event.stock-count-completed.v1

Format

The JSON format.