Physical Inventories

Yellow Dog Inventory gives you the ability to periodically check actual on-hand counts against the counts as reported by Yellow Dog, and then update Yellow Dog Inventory with new on-hands. This process is called a Physical Inventory. Yellow Dog recommends that this be done regularly to ensure on hand are kept accurate. Our recommendation is that Food & Beverage customers perform a Monthly Physical, whereas Retail Customers should take a physical quarterly. Ultimately, it is up the organization how frequently to perform Physicals. 

Creating a Physical Inventory

1. Navigate to Physical Inventories.
2. Create a new physical inventory by clicking the Create New Physical Inventory button on the right side of the screen. If you have access to more than one store, you will be prompted to select the store to perform the Physical Inventory for. 
   
   
3. Select the items you want to count. You can select “Add active items for store …, filtered by vendor or level (recommended)” or you can Select from other options. It is *highly* recommended that you choose the first option. 
   
   
   
   
4. If you would like to count specific Vendors/Level combinations, you can make that selection here.
5. If you are confident that any items that do not have an on-hand count in the system will not need to be counted, you can remove them by selecting “Skip Items with zero on hand”.
6. From the Review screen, you may add, edit, or remove items that should or should not be part of this Physical Inventory. Once all changes have been made, click “Select All ### Items”

Each count source you choose will create a new column in the editor.

Physical Inventory Editor

Effective Date/Time

From the Physical Inventory Editor screen, you can set the Effective Date and Time that this Physical Inventory will be applied to the system.

IMPORTANT: When committing a Physical Inventory, the counts will be applied to the system as of the EFFECTIVE DATE AND TIME that YOU set. This gives you the ability to count on a Sunday evening and come back Monday morning and commit the counts without losing any data integrity. THIS DOES NOT MEAN that you can take a week to conduct your Physical Inventory and expect the inventory counts to be accurate. In general, it is best to complete your Physical Inventory at one time.

Columns

Each source will bring in a column, however, you can create new ones with the buttons on the right hand side:

• Add Column
• Rename Column
• Remove Column

You can use the “Choose Columns” option to hide these at any point.

Sort By

From your new Physical Inventory, use the “Sort By” dropdown to decide how your worksheets should look. The sort order on the screen will be how your worksheets will print.

You can sort by:

• Item
• SKU
• Item List/Count Sheet Order
• Item List/Count Sheet Order (Reverse)
• Level, Item
• Vendor, Item
• Manufacturer, Item
• Reference * New*
• Dimension, Item
• Bin, Item
• Variance Quantity, Item
• Variance Quantity (Descending), Item
• Variance Cost, Item
• Variance Cost (Descending), Item

“Print Worksheet” will print based on the sort order chosen.

We’ve added a new checkbox option to “Show only items with no counts” to make it easier to quickly identify items that have not been counted.

If you add counts to any of those items, use the refresh button next to the checkbox to update the grid.

There is also a new option available in the Sort By dropdown: Reference. Make use of the new F&B Reference field and the ability to set items’ Reference in the Interactive View to help organize items in your Physical Inventory.

Find

Search key words in the description, or search for a specific SKU.

Check “Hide rows that don’t match Find” to only show filtered items.

Disable automatic recalculation

If recalculation takes longer than 2 seconds, this will appear as an option. Check to speed up the physical and reduce auto processing.

Show only items with no counts

If checked, only items that have no counts entered will be displayed to assist with identifying any items skipped during the counting process that should not have been.

Show only items with variances

If checked, the editor will refresh to only show items that have a variance to assist with validating counts.

Hide All Flag Columns

If using flags, once you’ve entered your counts, check this box to refresh the editor to remove those columns for easier analysis of your inventory.

Finishing an Inventory

Once you have updated all the inventory counts, you can see information on the physical inventory at the bottom of the screen. The variance count indicates the number of items that have counts different from what the Yellow Dog system has calculated should be on hand. A positive number means you have more inventory, a negative number indicates less inventory on hand than calculated. The variance cost is calculated using the cost calculation you have chosen; Yellow Dog’s default is weighted average.

We recommend running the Detailed (Select by Physical Inventory) report under Standard Reports/Physical Inventories before committing. You will need to select Show Uncommitted.              

When all counts have been entered and you are ready to commit the Physical Inventory, click Commit Physical Inventory.

You have the option to either Commit Physical or Commit Physical and Recalculate costs. If you have many inventories to review and commit, we recommend skipping recalculating and running Maintenance afterwards. Otherwise, you can commit the physical and recalculate to finalize. 

If you have items that have not been counted, the system will prompt you. If you are confident any items that were not counted do not need to be counted, click ‘Yes Commit Counts”. This will set any items that were added to the original inventory but not counted, even those with counts in the system, to zero.

If you did not miss items, the system will simply prompt you to commit the inventory. Both prompts will also display the effective date and time.

Run the Detailed Report again as a final check. Most clients use this report to turn in their numbers to the accounting/finance department.

IMPORTANT: Once you commit the physical inventory, the counts that you entered in to the “Counted” column will now become you current on-hand number. If a count is left blank, it will result in updating 0 on hand for the item.

Inventory Count Options

With CountXL App

We do offer a CountXL app that can be used on our Unitech EA630 device - that is lightweight and rugged device designed with speed in mind. This allows you to quickly lookup and add items and counts to your Session. These counts can then be uploaded to Yellow Dog either by using WiFi, or without WiFi in Stand Alone mode. 

For more information, you can reach out to Support or your Implementation Guide as well as review the manual in our knowledgebase.

With a Data Collector (YDIMobile)

Follow the steps in the beginning of this section to create a new physical inventory.

Make sure the device is connected to your PC via either the cradle or USB cable and the scanner is powered on. To test if the handheld is truly connected, open Windows Explorer and ensure that YDIMOBILE has become an accessible drive.

If this is your first time using SyncYDIwithHandHeld.exe, please refer to the ydMobile guide.

You can configure the handheld to sync for a single store, which is useful when there are multiple stores to be counted. Simply go to the “Stores” tab on the sync, select the store you wish to count and hit Go on the main tab. This will limit the sessions stored on the handheld to the store you have chosen, reducing the number of sessions you need to go through to import your counts.

1. Run SyncYdiWithHandheld.exe (this will update the device with all new items and updates). The sync can generally be found either as a shortcut on your desktop or in C:\ YellowDogInventory\ SyncYdiWithHandheld.
2. Disconnect the device from the computer and follow the onscreen instructions to launch YDIMobile.
3. Once the program opens, select your employee. Note: Depending on the version you are using, it may not prompt for an employee. In that case, skip this step.
4. Click Count Inventory Items.       
5. From the Select Session screen, click Create New Session and enter a session name. Choose something that is both unique for this inventory and for the handheld if there are multiple handhelds being used. It can be helpful to name sessions based on date, store, and employee name. For example, Bethany, Mary, and Curt are each using a scanner to count both the Lobby Gift Shop and the Casino Store on January 17th. Recommended session names would be:

• Jan17Casino Bethany
• Jan17Lobby Bethany
• Jan17CasinoMary
• Jan17Lobby Mary
• Jan17Casino Curt
• Jan17Lobby Curt

1. Then, select the store you are counting if you have access to multiple stores.        
2. Click “Add Item”.

You are now ready to scan your items. Use the bright blue buttons on the sides of the device to enable scanning.

When an item is scanned you will be prompted to enter a count for the item. Yellow Dog Inventory can handle decimals if necessary. Use either the on-screen numbers, +/-, or the keypad located at the bottom of your handheld to enter in your counts. Once completed click Submit and move on to the next item. Alternatively, scan each barcode and the system will tally the counts for you. 

Occasionally, an item with an unrecognized UPC will be scanned. From here, you can either

• Search for the item using the search field below the error message. Click the item you want associated with the barcode, and enter your count. Or,
• Click “Create Item” and enter in the description. Fill in any identifying information that will be helpful as you will be able to finish creating the item when you import your counts.

If you make a mistake adding a UPC to an existing item, hit File, then Edit (Item), click in the UPC field, then follow the directions on-screen. Click the UPC you wish to remove, then hit Yes when prompted. Click Close, then Close again. Change the count to 0, then hit Submit. Then, hit “Add Item” to go back to scanning.

1. Once your count is complete, click Close and then Exit.
2. Open your Physical Inventory in Yellow Dog and click Import Counts From…
3. Select Add counts from Session.
4. Click Launch Sync YDI with Handheld. This will sync the device with Yellow Dog Inventory and allow you to choose the sessions you wish to import.
5. Select the sessions you would like to import and click OK.

NOTE: If any problem items exist in the import, Yellow Dog will show you now. Examples of problem items include inactive/removed items that were scanned or items that are not assigned to the store.    

If the item is in the system, selecting it and clicking “Edit Item” will prompt you to fix it, either by un-deleting it or making it active in the store.

Alternatively, you can remove it from the session by clicking “Remove Selected” or “Remove Problem Items” to remove all problem items in the session.

Single Scanner

To add multiple sessions from a single scanner after running the sync, select every applicable session that you would like to import.

Multiple Scanners

To add multiple sessions from multiple scanners, repeat the process for a single scanner as many times as needed.

NOTE: After the first scanner is synced, that scanner’s sessions will appear again in each subsequent scanner’s synced sessions. You do not need to import these again. Ignore them and import the unique sessions from any subsequent scanners.

Multiple Sessions for the same Physical Inventory

In Yellow Dog, you can have multiple sessions for one physical; whether manually keyed in sessions, synced from data collectors, uploaded from the Apps or a combination of the above. When importing these sessions into a physical, each session will create a new column with the session description at the top. This is useful when dealing with large amounts of inventory, for control and count purposes.