How to effectively manage end of year inventory counts?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A retailer seeks guidance on conducting end-of-year physical inventory counts using Shopify POS scanners, specifically wanting to know if unscanned items can be automatically zeroed out.

Suggested Approaches:

  • Manual process: Export inventory reports, complete physical counts, document discrepancies, and manually update quantities across sales channels
  • Third-party apps: Multiple users recommend dedicated stock-taking apps that integrate with Shopify POS and barcode scanners

Key App Features Highlighted:

  • Scan inventory using multiple devices simultaneously (scanners, tablets, phone cameras)
  • Automatically zero out unscanned items
  • Generate comparison reports showing expected vs. actual counts in a single Excel export
  • Create valuation reports and audit trails
  • Process adjustments in the background after approval

Identified Pain Point:

One user notes that Stocky (Shopify’s native inventory app) lacks unified reporting—requiring manual comparison between Shopify reports and scanned data, which is time-consuming.

Several community members offer app recommendations with pricing starting around $5/month, along with setup guides and demo offers to streamline the year-end count process.

Summarized with AI on November 2. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi-

What is the easiest way to do your end of year physical inventory counts with Shopify? We have a large store and a ton of inventory to count. We have scanners for the Shopify POS too that I’m hoping we can use. I just need a step by step on how to execute this. And will it zero out the quantities of items not scanned? Thank you for your help!

Laura

2

4 Steps for Your Physical Count

  • Create an inventory count report using a spreadsheet or your inventory management system

  • Complete your count

  • Make detailed notes of an inventory errors

  • Update your recorded inventory across all your sales channels

I hope this helps.

3

Hi @Lo_RumourBtq ,

You could use our Stock Take app to scan your inventory and zero out any unscanned inventory.

The app will also generate a valuation report and send you a CSV file with your old and new stock counts. To speed things up, you can stocktake with multiple barcode scanners or device cameras if you use our app via Shopify Mobile/POS.

https://apps.shopify.com/stock-take

($5 per month for 2 Shopify locations)

Let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

support@brdatasolutions.com

Stock Take Support Team

1 Like
4

We do the stock take with our scanners thru Stocky. Our problem is there is not a report that will show you what you should of had and what you scanned all on one report. So we manually have to run a report out of Shopify and compare the two. Very time consuming

5

Would you please tell me how to run the report that shows you the scanned and unscanned. Is it one report?

6

Hey,

You could use our Stock Take Shopify App to conduct your stock takes. Once you’ve scanned all your items, you can use our export and reporting tool to compare your scanned items to what is currently in store. You’ll get an email with a excel file with the comparison which you can use to check.

How you can do this:

  1. Install our Shopify App on your store and set up the app on Shopify POS devices (either your mobile phones, tablets or POS hardware or scanners that work with POS)

  2. Create a stock take in our app

  3. Scan all your items in, using as many devices as you want

  4. Run a report comparing your stock levels.

  5. Once happy you’ve scanned everything you can action your stock take.

  6. We will then process that in the background for you.

There are also other reporting options so you can compare you stock take to your current stock levels for products with a specific tag, get an audit of all adjustments made and more! Which can be run either during or after your stock take has been completed.

We have some how to guides available in the app, which you can try for free. Or send me an email and I would be happy to give you a demo of the app.

7

https://community.shopify.com/c/retail-and-point-of-sale/feature-request-updated-year-end-stocktake-instructions/m-p/2817769

We use the stocky app and have taken the time to outline how to properly complete the steps needed for a clean year end inventory rollover (we use the POS so some of it may be POS specific).