Perform a stock take

This is when you check to make sure that number of stock items you actually have in your warehouse matches the number of items you have recorded as being in the warehouse in Sage 200.

You can use Sage 200 to help you with your stock takes. You can print stock take sheets which contain a list of the stock items and stock levels for each warehouse. Once you've counted your items you record any differences and update your stock levels.

If you already use a different process and just want to record the adjustments in Sage 200, you can use the Add stock screen.

The stock take process

You can create stock take sheets for all the items in a warehouse by selecting the bins the items are stored in.

Stages of a stock take

There are four stages to a stock take:

Prepare the stock take sheets.

Decide which items or bins you want to count in Sage 200. The status of the stock take is set to Selecting items.
Print stock take sheets and count the stock.

Use the stock take sheets to record the counted stock. The status of the stock take is set to Sheets printed.
Enter the new stock quantities in Sage 200.

Record the quantities of the stock items that you have counted. You can print a report detailing the difference between the expected stock quantities and the actual stock quantities. The status of the stock take is set to Entering counts.
Complete the stock take.

This finalises the amended stock quantities. If required, the stock records and the stock movement history are updated. The status of the stock take is set to Complete.

When to do a stock take

There are no hard and fast rules about how often, if ever, you do a stock take. How regularly you do this do and how you manage the process is up to you.

However, we do recommend that stock takes are done when there's a period of time when trading has stopped and no changes are made to the stock, either through Sage 200 or physically at the warehouse.

See when stock items are due a stock take

You can set how often you want to count specific stock items on the stock record (Details tab).

You enter how often (in days) you want to do a stock take for the item. You then use the Stocktake required report to see which items are due for stock take. The report lists stock items, their stock take cycle and the date of the last stock take for each item.

Preparing and printing stock take sheets

The first stage of the stock take is to create the stock take sheets. You can count your stock in each warehouse by stock item or bin.

Count by Stock item

This displays a list of all stock items stored in the selected warehouse. You can select the items:

Individually, by selecting the checkbox for the items you want to count.
Automatically, by using the Auto select option. This allows you to select the items by product group, date, stock quantity, and stock value. This is useful if you only want to count your high value items for example.

Count by bin

This displays a list of all the bins in the selected warehouse. Select the bins that you want to count. All stock items in the selected bin(s) are included on the stock take sheet.

The stock take sheets show the stock items in short name order for each bin. Each bin prints on a separate page.

Note: Bin names in Sage 200 are not case-sensitive. Therefore bins with the same name but with different cases, such as BIN, Bin, or bin, are printed all together.

Using multiple stock take sheets

You can create multiple stock take sheets for each warehouse.

Each stock take sheet for the same warehouse must use the same method of counting the stock. For example, once you create a stock take sheet for a warehouse to Count items by bin, all other new stock take sheets are also set to Count items by bin, until the stock take sheets are deleted or completed.
An individual stock item or bin can only appear on a stock take sheet once. For example, if you have included 'BIN 1' on a stock take sheet, ' BIN 1' does not appear on the list of bins for any new stock take sheets, until the stock take sheets are deleted or completed.

Amending and deleting sheets

You can amend a stock take sheet as long as it has not been printed. You can reprint the stock take sheets as often as necessary.
You can delete a stock take sheet at any time. This clears all the stock take selections made and allows you start the process again. No adjustments are made to the stock records until you Complete a stock take.

Entering stock counts

Once you've printed the stock take sheets, you can enter the numbers of stock that you have physically counted.

A quick way to do this is to copy the expected quantities to the actual quantities. You can then make individual changes to just the stock items that have differences. This is useful if you actual counts are close to the expected amounts.

Complete the stock take

What happens when there are differences

If the number of items counted in the warehouse if different to the number of items recorded in Sage 200, you enter the new stock level as part of the stock take process. When the stock take is completed, the stock level is adjusted to the new quantity.

If the stock level is increased, the additional stock is added using the:

Average cost price for items using the FIFO and Average costing methods.
Standard cost price for items using the Standard costing method.

A stock transaction with a type of Stocktake is recorded showing the movement details. You can see this on the Stock History Enquiry screen.

Stock take reports

The following reports are available for your stock takes:

Stocktake required - shows your when items are overdue for a stock take.
Stocktake status - prints a list of all the stock take sheets saved and their status (complete, printed, entering counts etc.).
Items without a stocktake - prints a list of items that have never been included in a stock take.