Reference
Inventory glossary
The words that decide whether a count is right, defined in the way a shop actually uses them. No acronyms without a meaning, no definitions that only make sense to a warehouse manager.
Stocktake
A full count of everything a shop holds, usually done for accounting at the end of a period. A stocktake is accurate for one moment and expensive to repeat; most small shops pair it with cycle counting so the book stays honest between full counts.
Cycle count
A short, frequent count of a chosen group of items — the fastest movers, the highest value, the ones with a recent variance — instead of counting everything at once. The point is to find a mistake while the cause is still fresh. A 700-SKU shop can rotate the whole catalogue in a few weeks, ten minutes at a time.
Blind count
A count where the person counting cannot see the expected quantity. It exists because people confirm what the screen says, especially after the twentieth line. Counting blind turns a count into a measurement instead of a confirmation. The review shows the variance afterwards.
Variance
The difference between the counted quantity and the book quantity for one item. A variance is not automatically an error in the count: it is evidence of an unrecorded delivery, an unrecorded sale, a unit mistake, or breakage. Investigate the cause before accepting the adjustment.
Reorder point
The stock level at which you must order, calculated as average daily sales multiplied by the supplier's lead time, plus a safety buffer. It is not the level at which you run out. If you sell three a day and the supplier takes seven days, the reorder point is at least 21 plus safety stock.
Safety stock
Extra cover held to absorb a late delivery or an unexpected run of sales. Expressed in days of sales or units. More safety stock means fewer stockouts and more cash tied up; the right amount depends on how badly a missing item hurts the shop.
Opening stock
The quantity an item starts with when you bring a catalogue into a new system. It is written as one movement, once. Re-importing the same file updates the item but does not add the opening stock again — otherwise every import would double the shelf.
Uncounted
A line in a count that was not counted, usually because the item was unreachable or out of scope for that location. Uncounted is not zero: the item keeps its current stock, and the review states how many lines were left. Treating a blank as zero is how stock disappears on paper.
Idempotent submit
A submit that can be retried without changing the result twice. Each count carries its own id, so a retry after a dropped connection is recognised by the server and reported as a duplicate instead of writing a second stocktake. The same idea protects an offline sale.
Stock ledger
The append-only list of movements that produced the current quantity: received, sold, adjusted, transferred, counted. A ledger lets you trace a wrong number to the event that made it wrong; a single overwritten quantity does not.
Where to go next
- How to run a stocktake on a phone — the full method and a printable sheet.
- Cycle counting for small shops — the four-week schedule.
- Reorder-point calculator — put the definition to work.
- Inventory count sheet — print one before the next count.