How Inventory Counts Work
Access requirements. You'll need the "Inventory" permission — view access lets you add and count items on an unlocked count, while edit access is needed to change the count's name/notes, start it, finalize it, cancel it, or delete it.
A count moves through statuses. "Draft" while you're still adding items, "In Progress" once you've started counting, and "Completed" once you've finalized it and stock has been adjusted. You can cancel a count at any point before it's completed.
Only one count can be in progress per store at a time. Finish or cancel your current one before starting another at the same store.
Expected quantity is a snapshot, not a live number. It's captured the moment you add an item to the count, or refreshed for every item already on it the moment you click "Start Count" — whichever comes first for that item. It won't update again after that, even if other sales or adjustments happen while you're counting.
Finalizing applies the adjustment for you. You don't have to calculate the difference yourself — completing the count adjusts your system's stock to match what you counted, and runs in the background.
Shared inventory gets a second review step. If any counted item shares stock with a linked item, finalizing walks you through those separately before completing, since their expected quantities work differently.
Where to Access Each Feature
To… | Go to |
See all inventory counts | Stock management → Inventory counts |
Start a new count | Stock management → Inventory counts → New Inventory Count |
Add or count a specific item | Open the count → Add products |
Starting a Count
Before you start: a count can only include products already set up in your catalog for that store. If you're counting something that isn't in Back Office yet, add the product first, then come back to start or add to your count.
Step 1
Click on "Stock management" in the left-menu bar, then click on "Inventory counts."
Step 2
Click "New Inventory Count."
Step 3
Enter a "Count name" (for example, "Monthly Count - December 2025"), choose the "Store," and add any optional "Notes," then click "Create Inventory Count." This creates the count in Draft status — nothing is snapshotted yet.
Adding Items and Counting
Step 4
On the count's page, click "Add products."
Step 5
Search by name, SKU, or barcode, and select an item.
Step 6
Enter what you counted as "Counted cases," "Counted units," or both, add any "Count notes," then click "Add to count." Repeat for each item — adding the same item again adds to its running total rather than replacing it, so it's safe to count the same item in more than one spot.
Step 7
Once every item you plan to count is on the list, click "Start Count" and confirm. This snapshots the expected quantity for every item currently on the count, based on what your system shows on hand right now, and moves the count to "In Progress."
Important: once a count is in progress, you can't send it back to Draft yourself. If you started too early, cancel it and start a new one instead of trying to undo it.
Step 8
With the count in progress, find each item in the grid — using the search box or by adding more with "Add products" — and click into its "Counted units" cell to enter or correct what you counted. Any item added from this point on gets its expected quantity captured immediately, the same way starting the count did for the others.
Finalizing a Count
Step 9
Once you're done counting, click "Finalize Count."
Step 10
Review the list of items whose inventory will be adjusted. If nothing has a variance, you'll see "No inventory adjustments needed" instead.
Step 11
If any counted items share inventory with a linked item, click "Continue" to review those separately (labeled "Step 2 of 2") — this screen shows the expected and counted totals across every linked variant together, since one physical count can affect more than one of them. You'll see this step whenever the count includes any linked item at all, even if none of them ended up with a variance — in that case it just confirms "No linked inventory adjustments needed."
Step 12
Click "Finalize" (or "Update inventory" on the linked-items step). The count moves to "Completed," and your stock levels update in the background.
Other Things You Can Do
Export — once a count is completed, an "Export Inventory Count" button lets you download it as a PDF or CSV.
Cancel — from the "⋮" menu, marks the count canceled without adjusting any stock. Available any time before it's completed.
Delete — also from the "⋮" menu, removes the count entirely.
Important: avoid deleting a count after it's been completed. A completed count has already adjusted your stock, and deleting it doesn't reverse those changes — it can also fail outright, since completed counts have records attached that resist being removed. Deleting is meant for a count you're abandoning before it's finished, not for undoing one that already ran.
Troubleshooting
You can't start a new count: only one count can be in progress per store at a time. Finish or cancel the current one first.
You can't edit a count or its items: a completed or canceled count is read-only for everyone. On an unlocked count, adding and counting items only needs view access, but changing the count's name, notes, or status needs edit access.
You started a count by mistake and want to go back to Draft: there's no way to do that yourself. Cancel it and start a new one.
The expected quantity looks wrong or out of date: it's a one-time snapshot taken when the item was added (or when you clicked "Start Count"), not a live number — it won't reflect anything that's happened since.
The export button says "Updating inventory currently" and won't go away: the count just finished and is still applying its stock adjustments in the background — this usually clears within a few minutes. If it's been stuck for a long time, that adjustment likely hit a problem and needs support to sort out; it won't resolve on its own.
You deleted a count and something looks off with your stock: deleting a count never reverses adjustments it already applied. If you deleted a completed count expecting it to undo those changes, it didn't — reach out to support to review what actually happened to your stock.
A product you need to count isn't showing up in search: it needs to already exist in your catalog for that store before you can add it to a count — create the product first, then return here.