An accurate inventory administration in Exact Online is essential for any business with physical products. But even with the best processes, inventory discrepancies creep in: items get damaged, are incorrectly booked or disappear. Regular stock counts are therefore indispensable. With the right stock counting software, you make this process fast, accurate and fully integrated with Exact Online.
Why count your stock regularly?
Your inventory administration in Exact Online is only as good as the accuracy of your bookings. In practice, differences between administrative and physical stock always arise. This has various causes:
- Booking errors: Wrong quantities or item numbers during goods receipt or delivery.
- Damage: Items that get damaged and are not written off.
- Theft or loss: Items that disappear without a booking.
- Returns: Returns that are not correctly processed in Exact Online.
- Production waste: Raw materials that are lost during the production process.
These differences accumulate. Without regular checks, your inventory in Exact Online can significantly deviate from reality after a few months. This leads to wrong purchasing decisions, missed deliveries and unreliable financial reports.
The problem with manual counting
Traditionally, a stock count is performed with pen and paper or Excel spreadsheets. Employees walk through the warehouse, count items and write down the quantities. Afterwards, the count results are manually compared with Exact Online and corrections are entered.
This process is time-consuming and error-prone. Counting errors are inevitable: items are counted twice, skipped or incorrectly identified. Transcribing count results leads to data entry errors. And the entire process can take days, causing the warehouse to shut down or the count to become inaccurate due to ongoing goods movements.
Many businesses therefore postpone their stock count — sometimes until the mandatory annual inventory. But the longer you wait, the larger the inventory discrepancies become and the harder it is to trace the causes.
Faster counting with barcode scanning
The Barcode Scan App makes stock counting for Exact Online fundamentally easier. Instead of manually identifying items and writing down quantities, you simply scan the barcode of each item. The app recognises the item directly from your Exact Online database and registers the count.
The process works as follows:
Step 1: Prepare the count
Create a new count in the app. You can choose a full count or selectively count by warehouse, location or item group. The app retrieves the required data from Exact Online.
Step 2: Scan and count items
Walk through the warehouse and scan the barcode of each item. Enter the counted quantity. The app automatically registers which items have been counted and which still need to be counted. For large quantities of the same item, you can simply enter the quantity after a single scan.
Step 3: Review differences
After counting, the app shows an overview of all inventory differences. You immediately see which items have more or fewer stock than registered in Exact Online. The app highlights large deviations so you can investigate them.
Step 4: Process corrections
After reviewing the differences, you process the corrections in Exact Online with a single tap. The app automatically creates the correct stock mutations. Your inventory administration in Exact Online matches reality again.
Cycle counting: small counts, big impact
With the Barcode Scan App, stock counting becomes so easy that you can do it much more frequently. Instead of one large annual count, you can switch to cycle counting: counting a small part of your stock every week or month.
The advantages of cycle counting are substantial:
- No warehouse downtime: You only count a small portion, so the warehouse can continue operating normally.
- Faster detection: Inventory discrepancies are discovered sooner, making it easier to trace the cause.
- Better accuracy: By counting more often, your inventory in Exact Online stays more accurate.
- Spread workload: Instead of one intense weekend, you count for half an hour each week.
The Balances feature in the Barcode Scan App
The Barcode Scan App offers a dedicated Balances feature designed for stock counts in Exact Online. This feature combines the convenience of barcode scanning with the power of Exact Online's inventory administration. You can manage multiple count lists simultaneously, pause and resume counts, and export count results for analysis.
The Balances feature also supports counting items with batch and serial numbers. When scanning a barcode with batch information, the batch number is automatically registered, so you also have accurate stock at batch level in Exact Online.
Start counting more efficiently today
The transition to digital stock counting with the Barcode Scan App is straightforward. The app works directly with your Exact Online environment — no configuration or modifications needed. Start your first count today and discover how much time you save.