Stock in and stock out

Everything that moves a stock figure other than a sale.

Your opening stock

Your shelves are not empty on the day you switch the module on, and Trackapt knows nothing about what is already there.

Book what you already own in as a delivery, from yourself. That is the only way to tell Trackapt both how many you have and what they cost you.

1. Go to Retail → Receiving and choose the location.
2. Scan each item you already hold.
3. Put the quantity that is physically on the shelf, and in Cost each what you actually paid for one. If the invoice is long gone, use the most recent price you paid — an honest estimate is worth far more than a zero.
4. In Supplier, type something like Opening stock, so anyone looking at the item's history later can see this was the starting figure and not a real delivery.
5. Click Book it in.

Do the opening delivery before the first count

This is not a preference. An item's cost is a weighted average:

(what you already held × its old cost  +  what arrived × the new cost)
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                          the total

Count 100 tins first and the item sits at 100 units costing nothing. Booking those same 100 tins in at $5 then averages $5 against 100 units of free stock and lands on $2.50 — half the real cost — and leaves the ledger claiming 200 tins.

Book the opening delivery while nothing is on hand and there is nothing to average against, so the cost is simply $5.

Free stock is not the same as unknown stock. If something genuinely cost you nothing — a sample, a supplier's promotion — book it at a Cost each of 0. That is a real answer and it correctly pulls the average down. Leaving the cost blank because you do not know it is what produces a meaningless valuation.

If you have already counted an item at no cost, you cannot type a cost in afterwards — there is nowhere to put it. Bring the item back to nothing first: write the uncosted units off under Adjust stock → Gone, then book them in properly with their real cost, then count to confirm. The write-off costs you nothing on the Shrink report, since stock with no cost is worth nothing there, though the units will appear in it.

Book in a delivery

Every time a supplier delivers, you book it in. This is the only thing that tells Trackapt what your stock cost you, so it is worth doing properly — your stock value and your profit margin both come from it.

1. Go to Retail → Receiving.
2. At the top right, choose the location the delivery is going into. Once you have scanned the first item this locks, so that a single delivery cannot be half in the stockroom and half on the shop floor.
3. In Scan what arrived, scan the first item and press Enter (a scanner does this for you). It appears as a line on the table below. If a box's label will not read, type part of its name into Or find it by name beside the scan box and click it in the list (or press Enter when only one matches) — it goes onto the delivery exactly as a scan would.
4. Scan the rest. Scanning the same item again adds one more to its quantity; you can also use the − and + buttons on the line, or the × at the end of the row to take a line off entirely. − on a quantity of one takes the line off too, so it asks first, the same as × (Remove / Keep). Clear, beside Book it in, empties the whole delivery after asking Clear all N lines still on this delivery? — none of them has been booked in, so the quantities and costs typed on them are lost. Clear empties it; Keep leaves it as it is.
5. In Cost each, type what one of that item cost you on the supplier's invoice — not what you sell it for. This is required on every line. Where your shop takes more than one currency, type it in your main currency — the one your reports are totalled in — because that is what every delivery here is booked in.
6. In Batch, type the batch or lot number from the box. Required on items set to Deliveries must name a batch, optional on everything else — but if the delivery note names a batch, it is worth having.
7. In Expires, pick the use-by date off the calendar. For an item with a Shelf life on its profile, a date is already filled in for you, counted forward from today — it is a starting point, so correct it to the date actually printed on the box.
8. Optionally, type the Supplier name. It is recorded against every line, so a query months later can be traced back to who sent it.
9. Check the footer: it shows how many lines and the total cost of the delivery. Compare it to the invoice.
10. Click Book it in.

The stock is now on hand at that location, and each item's average cost has been updated.

No handheld scanner? The camera button beside the scan box stays open on this screen, so you can go along a pallet scanning box after box before typing any of the costs. See Scanning with the camera.

If Book it in is greyed out

Look for the orange warnings above the footer. Still needs a cost lists, by name, the lines with no cost typed in, and Still needs a batch lists the batch-tracked lines with no batch. Both name the items rather than counting them, so you are not left hunting.

Do your first stock count

Booking in a delivery tells Trackapt what arrived. It does not tell Trackapt what was already sitting on the shelf when you started.

Until an item has been counted once, its stock figure is worked out from every movement Trackapt has ever seen for it — which, on day one, is nothing. That is what the never counted label means, and why you should count everything once, early.

After that first count the figure is anchored: Trackapt takes the last count and applies only what has happened since. It stops being a guess.

1. Go to Retail → Stock count.

2. Choose the location at the top. Counts are always per location — you count the shop floor and the stockroom separately. This is the one-at-a-time way, which suits a spot check and a short list. To count a whole section, see Count a whole aisle.

3. Bring the product into the panel, any of three ways:

   • Scan what you are counting. A handheld scanner types straight into the box; on a phone, the camera button beside it reads the label instead.
   • Or find it by name. Type part of the name — or part of the barcode — and pick from the list that appears, or press Enter when only one matches. A full barcode entered there is taken as a scan straight away.
   • Tap a quick key. The grid under the boxes holds the same keys the till taps, which are exactly the items with no label on them.

   A panel opens showing Counting and the product's name.

4. In On the shelf, type how many are actually there. Zero is a valid answer and you should record it — "none left" is real information.

5. Click Record.

6. Take the next item, and keep going.

Nothing to scan? Search for it, or tap a key.

Loose produce, bakery, anything sold by the tray, a torn label — these often have no barcode at all in Trackapt (a barcode is optional), or one nobody could recall while holding a crate of tomatoes. Or find it by name — or by its SKU — reaches the item without it, and the quick keys reach it without even that.

Delisted items appear in the search list and on the keys, marked delisted. An item you have stopped selling can still be sitting on the shelf, and counting it to zero is how it stops counting as stock.

The quick keys

Under the two boxes is a grid of keys. It is the same grid the till taps, and it holds the same things for the same reason: the items a shop sells that carry no printed code.

• Tap a key and the item goes straight into the counting panel.
• Refresh (the circular arrow) pulls the grid through again, for when someone has just laid new keys out.
• Hide (the chevron) collapses the grid. That device remembers which way you left it.

If the grid is empty it says so. Keys are laid out under Retail → Setup; where nobody has laid any out, the grid fills with what that location sells most, and the line beside the heading says which of the two you are looking at.

Two differences from the till: a delisted key can be pressed here, and there is no hold-for-a-quantity gesture, because the figure is typed into the panel the key opens.

You are not told what to expect

Neither the search list nor the panel shows what Trackapt believes is on the shelf. A count that opens on the expected figure is a confirmation, and it agrees every time. The gap comes back the moment you record.

After each count Trackapt tells you immediately whether the shelf agrees with its records — agrees with the ledger, 3 short, or 2 more than expected.

The Counted just now table shows everything counted in this session — Product · Expected · Counted · Gap · At cost — with a running total of the net difference priced at cost. Counted before shows the historic count register for that location.

A gap is a fact, not automatically a problem

Investigate the big ones. The counted figure always wins: once you record it, that is what Trackapt believes is on the shelf.

Count a whole aisle

Retail → Count sheet is the other way to count, and the only one that finds what scanning cannot: an item that is not on the shelf at all.

A scan pass can only report on what somebody thought to scan. A line that has been empty for a fortnight, a facing nobody noticed had gone — those get scanned by nobody and counted by nobody, and the stock figure goes on saying whatever the ledger last believed. A sheet lists every item in the aisle, so an uncounted line is visible as an empty box rather than invisible as an absence.

1. Choose the location, as always.
2. Choose Which aisle — a category, which is one of your Tracker Groups. The number beside each name is how many sellable products it holds.
3. Click Build the sheet. Every product in that category is listed with an empty box beside it.
4. Walk the aisle and type what is there. Leave a line blank if you have not counted it — a blank is not a zero, and only the lines you typed into are recorded.
5. Click Record ⟨n⟩ counts.

The gaps come back straight afterwards, as a table of only the lines that found something, with the net difference at cost.

Search without losing your place

Once a sheet runs past a dozen lines a Find a line box appears. It hides the lines that do not match so you can count a shelf at a time. Nothing you have typed is lost — a hidden line keeps its figure and is still recorded, and the screen says how many are hidden.

Still no expected figures

The sheet has three columns — Product, Barcode, and On the shelf, the box you type into. What Trackapt believes is on the shelf is nowhere on it, for the same reason the one-at-a-time screen keeps it back: a sheet that opened on the expected figures would be a confirmation exercise, and it would agree every time.

Delisted items are on the sheet, marked delisted. An item you have stopped selling can still be sitting there, and counting it to zero is how it stops counting as stock.

One aisle at a time

A sheet covers one category. A whole supermarket on one screen is not a list anybody walks, so the aisle is the unit that matches how counting actually happens. A sheet lists up to 2,000 products; a larger category is listed to its first 2,000 in name order, and the screen says so: count the rest on Stock count, one at a time.

Record ⟨n⟩ counts sends every line you counted. A long sheet goes up in parts of up to 500 lines, one after the other, all stamped with the same moment — the moment you first pressed the button — so every line is measured against the ledger as at that moment, whichever part it travelled in. An aisle walked at eight and typed up at nine is one count taken at nine, not a hundred counts drifting apart while they save. While it records, the On the shelf boxes, Counting at, Which aisle and Build the sheet are held still.

If a part is refused, the lines already recorded leave the sheet and the rest stay on it, with the figures you typed. Press Record again to send them: they are still measured as at your first press, and the gaps shown are the whole sheet's.

If the connection drops while it records

A part may have been recorded even though the screen never heard back, so its lines still look unsent. Recording them again counts those lines twice. Check with a manager before you press Record again.

Building the sheet again over a sheet you have typed figures into asks first, because it lists the aisle afresh and discards what you typed.

Routine counts

Counting is not only a start-up task. A rolling count of a section a week is easier to sustain than a full shutdown twice a year, and it finds problems while they are still small. The count sheet is built for exactly that: one aisle, listed, walked and recorded in a sitting.

The Counted before table is your register: what was counted, when, and what the gap was each time. Those historic figures never change, so a bad month stays visible.

Adjust stock — things gone and things found

Stock disappears for reasons that are not sales — it breaks, it expires, it gets taken, it gets used by staff. And occasionally stock turns up that the records did not know about.

1. Go to Retail → Adjust stock.
2. Choose the location.
3. Scan it into Scan the product — or, if it has no label that will read, type part of its name into Or find it by name and pick it from the list.
4. Choose what happened:
   • Gone (red) — the stock is no longer there. This is the default.
   • Found (green) — stock is there that the records did not have.
5. Type How many.
6. If you chose Gone, you must choose a Why:

Reason	Use it when
Damaged	Broken, crushed, spoiled in handling
Expired	Past its date and thrown away
Stolen	Known or strongly suspected theft
Counted short	A shortfall found at a count that you are writing off
Sample or staff use	Consumed in the shop rather than sold
Returned to supplier	Sent back to whoever delivered it

7. Click Record.

The reason is not paperwork

It is the entire content of your Shrink report. A month of write-offs all logged as Damaged because it was first on the list tells you nothing about whether you have a theft problem. Take the extra second.

There is no undo

The counters at the top of the screen say so. If you write off ten by mistake, record ten as Found. Both entries stay on the record, which is the point.

Choose Gone or Found before you open the camera — the window sits on top of that switch, and says which it is scanning for in its own heading.

Move stock between locations

Moving stock from the stockroom to the shop floor is not a sale and not a loss, but the two stock figures both have to change.

You need at least two open locations

With only one, the screen will tell you there is nowhere to move stock to.

1. Go to Retail → Move stock.
2. Under Send stock, scan it into Scan the product — or type part of its name into Or find it by name and pick it from the list.
3. Choose From and To. They must be different.
4. Type How many.
5. Decide about the tick box It is already there — record it as arrived now:
   • Tick it if you have physically carried the stock across. Both figures update immediately and you are finished.
   • Leave it unticked if the stock is travelling — on a van between two branches, say. It leaves the source now, and does not arrive until somebody confirms it.
6. Click Send.

Confirming an arrival

Anything still travelling is listed under Still on the road, showing the product, the route, the number of units, and how long ago it was sent. When it arrives, click Received on its row. The destination figure updates at that point.

Two counters at the top tell you how much is On the road and how long the Longest out has been travelling. Anything in transit for days is worth chasing — stock in transit is stock nobody can sell.