1. Using Inventory Management
  2. Physical Inventory Creation

Physical Inventory Creation

Creating a physical inventory includes specifying primary details, subinventories, approvals, and tags. You can define and maintain an unlimited number of physical inventories.

Use the Manage Physical Inventories task from the Inventory work area to create and manage your physical inventories. To create a new physical inventory, select Actions > Create from the Search Results section of the page. To manage an existing physical inventory, search for and select a physical inventory.

Complete these details when creating a physical inventory:

  • Primary details
  • Subinventories
  • Approvals
  • Tags

Primary Details

On the Create Physical Inventory page, specify primary details for your physical inventory.

Field

Definition

Name

Enter a unique physical inventory name.

Description

Enter a unique physical inventory description.

Exclude Negative Balances

Select this check box to exclude items with a negative quantity from the snapshot.

Exclude Zero Balances

Select this check box to exclude items with zero quantity from the snapshot.

Dynamic Tags Allowed

 Select this check box to allow dynamic entry of tags that you manually create.

If you choose not to allow dynamic tag entry, all tags must be generated before use.

If you don’t want to allow dynamic tag entry, but you need blank tags, you can generate numbered blank tags for counting miscellaneous items.

Additional Information

Use the descriptive flexfields to add additional information about your physical inventories.

Subinventories

On the Create Physical Inventory page, specify the subinventories to count by selecting on option for the Subinventories to Count field. You can choose between these values:
  • All: count all subinventories.
  • Specific: specify the specific subinventories to count by clicking the Select Subinventories button.

Approvals

Let’s look at the fields for approvals.

Field

Definition

Approval Type
Determine the level of approval required for physical inventory adjustments:
  • Always: All physical inventory adjustments required approval. If there isn't a discrepancy between the count quantity and system quantity, no approval or on-hand updates for the item are required.
  • If out of tolerance: Approval is required only when the quantities differ from system quantities beyond the defined tolerances.
  • Allow any adjustment to post without approval.

Positive and Negative Quantity Tolerance Percentages

Enter the percentage variances of count quantity to on-hand quantity beyond which adjustments are held for approval.

Positive and Negative Adjustment Value Tolerance

Enter the positive and negative adjustment values beyond which adjustments are held for approval.

Tags

Use physical inventory tags to record the physical counts of inventory items. Physical inventory tags represent actual paper tags that some companies use to count inventory items. A tag contains the count for a group of a given item.

Let’s look at the fields for tags.

Field

Definition

Tag Type
Select the type of tag to create:
  • Blank: tags contain no item information.
  • Both: create blank and default tags.
  • Default: creates a unique tag for every combination of item number, subinventory, revision, locator, lot, and serial number that exists in the subinventories for the selected physical inventory.

Show Serial Numbers on Tags

 Select this check box to show serial numbers on physical inventory tags.

If you choose not to show serial numbers on tags, you get a tag for each item, but you must match the serial numbers to the items manually.

You can enter a value in this field only if you select Default or Blank in the Tag Type field.

Starting Default Tag

 Enter the starting default tag number.

Tag numbers may be alphanumeric, but you can increment only the numeric portion.

Important: When entering a starting tag number, be sure that it contains the total number of possible digits that a tag can have. For example, if your tag numbers can have up to five digits and you want the starting number to be 1, you would enter 00001.

Starting Blank Tag

 Enter the starting blank tag number.

Tag numbers may be alphanumeric, but you can increment only the numeric portion.

Important: When entering a starting tag number, be sure that it contains the total number of possible digits that a tag can have. For example, if your tag numbers can have up to five digits and you want the starting number to be 1, you would enter 00001.

Number of Blank Tags

 Enter the number of blank tags you anticipate needing. You can void blank tags if they aren’t used.

Use blank tags if you find items in the warehouse for which the system shows no quantity available. The items are physically there, but they aren’t recorded in the system.

Tag Generation Sequence

 Determine your tag generation sequence using the Tag Generation Sequence choice lists: Sequence 1, Sequence 2, Sequence 3, Sequence 4, Sequence 5, and Sequence 6.

Choose from subinventory, locator, item, revision, project, and task for Sequence 1 through Sequence 6.

Tags are generated in numeric and alphabetic order using the tag generation sequence that you specify.

Note: You don't need to select values for all six sequences.