The term stock inventory refers to the process of verifying the actual quantity of items we physically have in the warehouse. During the normal operation of a business and its warehouse, discrepancies can arise between the quantities recorded in Flexi and what is actually on the shelf. There can be many reasons for such differences. It is therefore necessary to perform a stock inventory at regular intervals — that is, to count the physical quantities in the warehouse and compare them with the quantities recorded in the system.
For this process, we can use the Inventories module in Flexi. This module can be found in the menu under Goods -> Inventories.
Creating an Inventory
To create an inventory, select New and a form with the inventory details will appear.
A description of the individual fields can be found here.
The required fields are Inventory Type, where you can give the inventory any name you like, and Start Date (this is the date used to generate the warehouse documents).
On the Details tab, you can select the warehouse where the inventory will be conducted. If no warehouse is selected, it will be possible to add items from all warehouses.
Inventory Status is used for tracking purposes only and has no effect on other functions.
Recommendation
Before creating the inventory, it is necessary to balance the dispatch requests, as the system loads the Stock Status in UOM column from the stock cards into the inventory as the system quantity — and this column does not take dispatch requests into account.
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Inventory Items
Items can be added to the inventory in bulk using the Insert Items button. This displays all stock card items that can be added to the inventory from the warehouses defined above. The system will then ask whether the items should be inserted with a zero quantity. If you select Yes, the Real Stock column will be pre-filled with zero. If you select No, the Real Stock column will remain empty.
The second option is to add items individually using the Add button. You can then select an item from the price list, choose a warehouse, and enter a quantity in one of the inventory waves. This quantity will be immediately written into the Real Stock column.
If an item loaded into the inventory tracks batches or expiration dates, these are reflected in the inventory. The item will appear on as many rows as there are combinations of batches and expiration dates for that item. The system quantity will always correspond to one such combination.
Recommendation
It is not necessary to include all warehouse items in a single inventory. A large number of items in one inventory can become difficult to manage. For better clarity, we recommend creating multiple inventories for a single warehouse — for example, one per product group.
Barcode scanners can also be used during inventory. Directly within the inventory detail, scan the item's EAN code — if the item with that EAN already exists, the quantity will increase by 1; if it does not exist, a new item will be created.
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System Quantity
This column shows the quantity of the given item as recorded on its stock card in Flexi.
If, for example, you return to an inventory after some time and the stock card quantities may have changed in the meantime, you can click Update Quantities in the top toolbar. This will reload the current stock card quantities into the System Quantity column as of the inventory start date.
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Real Stock
This column is where you enter the actual quantity that you physically have in the warehouse.
Quantities can be entered in each of the four waves. The quantity recorded in the last completed wave will always be used as the correct stock level.
In the inventory item list view, this column always displays the quantity entered in the first wave.
Recommendation
You can use the keyboard shortcut Alt + Right/Left arrow to navigate between inventory items when entering real stock quantities. Simply confirm each entry with Enter and move on to the next item.
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Generate Documents
This button generates warehouse documents based on the information entered in the inventory.
Before generating the documents, the system will ask which warehouse document type you want to use.
A warehouse document is always generated with a quantity equal to the difference between the Real Stock and System Quantity columns.
For all items where the Real Stock is lower than the System Quantity, a single Goods Issue document will be generated containing those items in quantities equal to the difference between the columns.
For all items where the Real Stock is higher than the System Quantity, a single Goods Receipt document will be generated containing those items in quantities equal to the difference between the columns.
Recommendation
You can create a dedicated warehouse document type for inventories with an appropriate accounting assignment.
Flexi does not automatically create a link between an inventory and its generated documents. However, you can set up an automatic user-defined link so that the inventory's relationships show which documents were generated from it. An example of how to create such a link can be found here.
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Update Quantities
This button updates the quantities of inventory items in the System Quantity column based on the quantity recorded on the stock card as of the inventory start date.
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Additional Tips
To perform a physical warehouse check, you can print an Inventory Item List for the given inventory using the printer icon.
Kits and bundles cannot be added to an inventory — only the individual component items of kits and bundles can be added.
It is not possible to perform an inventory of serial numbers in Flexi.
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Warehouse inventories from version 2021.5.0 onwards take dispatch requests into account
System Quantity in the inventory now reflects the stock card status as of the inventory start date including dispatch requests created during that period. It is therefore no longer strictly necessary to perform an Update of Dispatch Requests before starting an inventory. Any inventory receipt will accordingly settle the requests from the current period (the first available price will be used as the purchase price: average price from the stock card, last purchase price from the stock card, or purchase price from the price list).
It remains necessary to address dispatch requests from all previous periods. It is technically not possible to use an inventory to settle requests accumulated from stock cards in prior periods.
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