This may appear to be a lot of information to read through but the more prepared you are for the Physical Inventory Counting the easier you will find it. Be prepared, do a trial run and make sure you are familiar with the equipment you are using. If you have ANY QUESTIONS please call us – 877-723-7835 x2 Mon-Fri 9 am – 6pm Eastern. We also have extended support hours for emergencies (there may be an additional charge); we do not setup equipment during the extended support hours. Please set an appointment if you need help setting up the PDT.

Before you begin inventory counting – These are very important steps if you want your inventory counting to be accurate.

1. Make sure that all items that are on PO’s and have arrived in the store have been marked as received. You will be counting these items so you want them to show in your inventory. GO=>Receiving

2. Make sure that all Special Orders that have been picked up have been marked as delivered. Items that are no longer in the store need to have that reflected in the item record. GO=>Accounting=>Outstanding Transactions=>Special Orders / Custom Orders=>All Pending Orders – this will give you a list of all pending orders. This list should be cleaned up before you begin.

3. Make sure all Layaways that the customers have picked up have been marked as delivered. Items that are no longer in the store need to have that reflected in the item record. GO=>Accounting=>Outstanding Transactions=>Pending Layaways=>All Pending Orders – this will give you a list of all pending orders. This list should be cleaned up before you begin.

4. Make Sure you do not have sold before receiving entries, this can cause problems if you’re trying to count inventory and you have reserve quantity, as the inventory will still be off if the reserve was not met.

To check and correct for this: Main Menu=> Inventory & Pricing= > Stock Management= > Receiving => Receive from List of All Items on order => Press F2 and change to Purchase Order # (This might be under more search options).

Any items listed without a PO# are sold before receive these Items need to be received.  This will not increase the quantity on hand of the item.  

Using PDT(Portable Data Terminal)

Sometimes the inventory will not fit on the PDT in one go, if that is the case you will have to Upload a new Look-up table for each group you are counting and then download it in Artisan. Since you will be doing this while the store is closed you can accept the counts in one go, BUT ONLY after you know the entire store has been counted.  Watch out for the popup under the **NOTE**, this window seems to confuse people.  Basically, if going into the Inventory Counts screen for the very 1^st time and downloading from the PDT(this season) if this NOTE pops up say YES. The popup will appear every time after the first download, answer NO to all subsequent pop ups. Please Test in sample data.

NOTE – First time answers YES – you want all items to be marked as ‘Not Counted’ when you first start. All subsequent times answer NO – you do not want to lose previously downloaded counts.

Loading PDT Look-up Table  

In Artisan follow  Tools=> Send Lookup Table to PDT

This will bring you to the Product Look-up Table options (below). This screen allows you to select the Vendors or Categories to send to PDT. If you want to send more than one category or vendor at a time separate the list with a comma between each code(e.g. 100, 200, 300). You can also press F2 and search for the code you are looking for if you are not sure. If your entire inventory will fit on the PDT you do not need to limit the items by Category or Vendor, you can leave this set to –ALL-. If you are not sure if your inventory will fit on the PDT you can check the size of the file before uploading the data, to do this, follow the next steps.

Check Look-up Table File Size

We now need to check the file size; the PDT only allows up to 850KB, anything bigger will not fit into the scanners memory. If the file is too large then you will have to count the inventory in groups, breaking these groups down by either Vendor or Category. Then you will count your inventory in groups by loading one lookup table, completing the count and downloading into Artisan and then loading another look-up table for the next group etc. To check the size of the file 

1. Click Start in the above screen shot.  DO NOT CLICK "OK" YET.  Minimize Artisan By clicking the dash => 

2. Next go to the Start=> Computer=> (This will be different depending on your operating system, you want to open the Explore window for the computer). Double click on Local Disk (C:) => Double click on Artisan=> double click on  Local=> double click on V3=> double click on Temp=>  now look for iLookup.txt file and look to the right to see the size, or hover the mouse over the file and it will display the size. See image below.

- If the file size is under 800KB go back to Artisan and follow the on screen directions to get the PDT ready.  

- Once you click OK you should get the below screen, your items are being transferred to the PDT, this may take some time depending on the number of items you have. If you get an error on the screen Request Timed Out and Memory Full on the PDT screen then you will need to start the above process over again, but this time add one less vendor or category. If it loaded correctly Artisan will just come back to the download product look-up screen with no errors.

Taking Inventory from the PDT

From the Main Menu=>Inventory & Pricing=>Stock Management= > Physical Inventory Counting=>Enter Inventory Counts=>Upload from Portable Data Terminal - Artisan MAY ask you to Select the Site / Inventory Location you are entering the counts for, select the location and continue.

The below Image may popup. *Please see NOTE* - Repeat the above process if the store’s inventory did not fit on the scanner in one go. Once you know you have downloaded the counts for all items in the store into Artisan continue on to the next steps. 

**NOTE** (If going in to the "Physical Inventory Counting" screen For the VERY 1St time this counting season and you get the below image popup, it means you had counts left over from last counting season.  If that is the case you will want to say Yes.  WARNING – WARNING – WARNING You will get this screen for this season again, but it will only be if you are going back in to the enter "Physical Inventory Counts" screen after the first time OR you are having to download from the PDT in Batches, (Is someone else helping you count?, They may have already entered some counts)  you will ONLY say Yes if it pops up the very 1st time before you have entered ANY counts this season - If in doubt please say NO.

Review counts

From the Main menu=>Inventory & Pricing=>Stock Management=>Physical Inventory Counting=>Review Entered Counts & Make Adjustment - You can select the report you would like to see from this list, normally the "Exception Report - Counted Items Only”. If you need to see everything counted and not counted use the “Exception Report - Include Uncounted Items”.  You can make Adjustments from this screen if counts are not correct for an item. Once everything looks good move on to next step. Repeat the above process if the store’s inventory did not fit on the scanner in one go. Once you know you have downloaded the counts for all items in the store to Artisan continue on to the next steps.

Before moving on to the Next step - Make a backup – in Artisan Tools=>Backup (Path can be C:\Artisan\Backup) Click "Start".  

Why is a backup so important? If you make the wrong choice you can always restore from backup. If you do not have a backup you will lose all your hard work.
 

Accepting Counts

From the Main Menu=>Inventory & Pricing=>Stock Management=> Physical Inventory Counting=>Accept New Counts=>Set Quantity On Hand to Zero for ALL Uncounted Items (Please See Note Below) =>Say YES to popup.

**NOTE**
If you Did NOT Finish Counting the entire store before you need to re-open,  DO NOT SELECT "Set Quantity On Hand to Zero for ALL Uncounted Items"  as this will ZERO all Uncounted inventory. Instead select "1. Keep Your Current Quantity On Hand for Uncounted Items" => Say YES to popup. Repeat the above process until the whole store has been counted if you are counting in batches, i.e. while the store is open, or just doing a few sections at a time. Once the store has been fully counted read "Batch Zero out counts" step.

Batch Zero Out Accounts

Review the Items that will be changed to Zero. **SKIP** This below step if you chose Set Quantity On Hand to Zero for ALL Uncounted Items above.

From the Main menu=>Inventory & Pricing=>Stock Management=>Physical Inventory Counting=>Zero Out Items w/o Recent Accepted Counts
Enter the date you started counting your inventory i.e 01/15/2013
Press start.  Review the list, you can also print with CTRL + P if everything appears correct press F10 to process Zeroing Items that did not get counted.  SKIP this step if you chose Set Quantity On Hand to Zero for ALL Uncounted Items in the above step.

Running Database Maintenance

Do this from the Main Artisan computer – These types of tasks run faster when they don’t have to work through the network.
At the top of Artisan screen Tools=>Database Maintenance=>Repair Database - Check Consistency=>Perform Individual Consistency Checks.  
REMOTES WILL NEED TO BE MERGED BACK IN FIRST!!!! (This applies to multi-store OR if you used remote stations for inventory counting).

-Re-Index Database(X)
-Check Sequence Numbers(Q)
-Check for Missing Inventory Adjustments(M)
-Check Inventory Quantities (I) 

-UN-Check everything else. See screenshot to the left.

Press Start, Artisan will run a database repair (may take a little while) and may find errors and ask you what to do, Click ALL YES if the box pops up. 

Forcing Stock Units 

REMOTES WILL NEED TO BE MERGED BACK IN FIRST!!!!
At the top of Artisan Tools=>Database Maintenance=>Advanced Database Maintenance=>Click OK to red box=>Force Stock Units to Match Visible QOH=> YES to Yellow Box=> Yes =>  No to "Slower Lower memory scan"=>  Artisan might find some items and fix them,  Once done click OK. 

Printing Inventory Summary Report – Inventory Value 

- At the top of the Artisan screen Reports=>Inventory Reports=>Inventory Summary

- You can back date the report to reflect the date you need to get the full value of your inventory, but please note this report is most accurate when run as close to the date as possible, otherwise Artisan needs to back calculate through adjustments, sales & receiving.

- Include Corrections Through is the date to Include Corrections Through the date you finished accepting / zeroing counts on. The Include Corrections Through ONLY needs to be changed if you are back dating the Report date. Otherwise leave both as is. Change the "Summarize By" to Category.

Make Inventory Adjustments

 - If your store was open while you were doing your inventory counting you will need to make adjustments for any items that were sold during the time of counting. The below report will help you find the items that you will need to spot check so you know if you should make an adjustment or not.

Reports=>More Standard Reports=>Sales by Item – Change the dates to reflect the date range you were counting inventory as well as change the Show Items with Sales to Only Items With Sales.