Export Stock Take to Scanner
Go to the Utilities Menu and select Addins. Select Export Stock Take for Scanner.
Figure 1. Export Stock Take File
This opens the Export Stock Take Screen. Select the stock take you want from the upper half of the screen and you can see the items on the stock tale in the button half of the screen. It shows the barcode, the price, the description, the quantity that RMS currently hold for that item and the quantity counted in the stock take. The quantity counted will be 0 as we have not yet performed our stock take. Click Export scanner file to export the file to the specified location.
Figure 2: Export stock take file
Load exported file onto the mobile device.
Put the exported .csv file in the My Documents folder on the mobile device. Run the Stock Take application. From the File menu select Load Stock Take from RMS. Browse to the .csv file that we just place on the device and click open. You should now see the stock filename at the bottom of the screen to show the file is loaded.
Figure 3: Loaded stock take file on mobile device
Stock Take
You can now begin your stock take. Scan an item. The Item description and price will show above the stock filename. You can also see the target count. This is how many you expect to have in stock according to the current RMS inventory. The Item Count shows how many you have counted so far. The item count is remembered for each item so you can scan your stock in any order and do not have to scan similar items together.
Figure 4: A scanned item with information from RMS.
Scan the same item again and the item count increments by 1. You can also manually increase the count using the buttons. For example if you know you have 10 in a sealed box and don’t wish to open it and scan them individually, then press +10. The item count increase by 10. You can also decrease the item count manually. For example if you accidentally scan an item more than once incorrectly then press the -1 button to correct the count.
If you scan an item that is not in the stock file then the Stock Take application will warn you so you can decide what to do. It may be that it is a new item that is not in RMS or it may be that it is just not in the stock take file that you exported because you are not doing full stock take.
You can check your stock take file at any point by clicking on the Check Count menu item. This brings up the Stock View. This shows the full stock take file. In order the columns are barcode, the current count for the item, the stock take date, the expected count, price, and description.
Figure 5: Stock view screen
To save the file Select File and Save As. Save the stock take file in the My Documents folder. You will need to save the file with a new filename not replace the existing one. If you save it with the same file name it will append to the existing file not replace it.
The save button on the main screen is intended for use when an item count is typed in manually using the keyboard on the scanner rather than using the touchscreen buttons on the application interface. You must press the save button to save the figure after each entry.
Load the Stock Take back into RMS
Run Store Operations Manager. Go to the Inventory Menu and select Physical inventory. Select your stock take and click properties to open the physical inventory count screen. Click import file to import the stock take into RMS.
Figure 6: Physical Inventory Count Screen in RMS
The File import wizard opens. Click next. Select the file to import. This will be in the my documents folder of the mobile device. You can either browse to it on the device or copy it back onto your computer if you want to archive the stock take files of the device. The file type should be Character delimited by default. If it is not select this option. Click next.
To specify the file format select comma as field delimiter and as comment delimiter. Leave start import at line as 0. Leave field is enclosed in quotes as unchecked. Specify field positions as follows. Item Lookup Code = 1, Quantity = 2, Create Date = 3. These settings should be remembered the next time you import a stock file. Click next.
Figure 7: Specify file format
You can now specify how you want to import the stock take. For items you can specify only to update the stock levels for items that are currently in RMS. Or you can have it add any items that do not exist. Best practice is to any new items in RMS before importing the stock take. For quantities you can add to existing counts or replace existing counts. Select replace existing counts. These settings should be remembered the next time you import a stock file. Preview the file and select import.
You can now click calculate on the Physical Inventory count screen to compute any quantity discrepancies. RMS will now show you the counted value, the expected value and the delta vale for items. Yu can check Hide items with no discrepancies to only show items where the count and the expected differ if you want. From here you can go back and re-count or you can commit the stock take.
Figure 8. Review stock take
Starting with a blank Stock Take
You can also create a new blank stock take from the scanner application. The advantage of this being that you don’t need to export it from RMS first. The disadvantage is you won’t get a warning when you scan an item you are not expecting and you won’t have the expected item count to guide you.
To import this back into RMS start a new blank Physical Inventory based on manual entry. From the Physical Inventory Count Screen select import and follow the previous process.
