Physical Inventory

Many shops do an annual physical inventory at the end or beginning of the year with the goal being to have a clean inventory where items that physically present are accounted for and unscanned items are set to zero, as there could be positive quantities in the system even though there aren’t any in the store (could be due to breakage, returns, shoplifting, etc.).

An excellent way to do this is to use StockSavvy to scan all items into one session and be able to see the scanned items and unscanned items. Shops often look at the unscanned items to check because they may have missed it during the scanning. StockSavvy lets you go back and forth between scanning and checking. While StockSavvy has this ability to set zero for unscanned items, it is recommended to use the Shopify CSV tool to do it if you have a lot of items in unscanned list, such as when you are doing an annual physical inventory. Many people will have a large number of items but they physically only have a fraction of that because they just keep getting new products and don’t restock old ones.

So, the recommended approach is this if you’re doing a full physical inventory:
Scan all items into a session in StockSavvy, but don’t click Update Shopify yet. You’ll see the items you scanned and also a tab of unscanned items. Typically people find this really useful and go back and forth to scan more and review scanned/unscanned.
Use Shopify CSV tool to set zero for all items (also see this article: http://www.getstocksavvy.com/zeroing-many-items/):

  1. Scan all items into a session in StockSavvy, but don’t click Update Shopify yet. You’ll see the items you scanned and also a tab of unscanned items. Typically people find this really useful and go back and forth to scan more and review scanned/unscanned.session_ready_to_update
  2. Use Shopify CSV tool to set zero for all items (also see this article: http://www.getstocksavvy.com/zeroing-many-items/):
    1. Go to the Shopify CSV tool (Products > Inventory > Export) and download the .csv file of all quantities. You’ll get an email containing the .csv file.export_shopify_csv
    2. Use Excel or some spreadsheet program to change all the quantities to zero in that downloaded .csv file. You may change all locations or just one location if you are doing by location.edit_csv_to_zero
    3. Use the Shopify CSV tool to import the .csv from the previous step. This will set zero for all items.import_shopify_csv
  3. Go to back to StockSavvy and click Update Shopify for the session with all items. This will set quantities you scanned.update_shopify