Internal Inventory Audit

TrackAbout Feature
Feature Name:	Internal Inventory Audit
In Module:	Core Tracking
Short Description	The Physical Inventory process allows for internal asset auditing and “cycle counts”.
Available In:	TAMobile 6 Desktop, TAMobile 6 Rugged
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Summary

A common business practice is to periodically take an inventory of all of the assets that are in an internal location. Some users will do this every month and some every year and some just as needed.

This is done to make the system more accurate and to find lost assets.

There are two ways to conduct Internal audits with TrackAbout

Using TrackAbout's Physical Inventory handheld functionality. Includes website audit reconciliation process
Using TrackAbout's Locate action. Does not include reconciliation assistance.

Audits using the Physical Inventory feature

The "Physical Inventory" button is available for TrackAbout Core Tracking clients who are using TAM6. If you are unsure whether this feature is available to you, please contact our Support Team

The Physical Inventory feature can be used by multiple handhelds at the same time to canvas an area for assets.

The user will be asked to select the location, kind of audit, and if applicable, the Asset Family Collection for which the audit is being conducted.

Then users will simply scan all assets they encounter of the kind they are targeting.

When the assets are scanned, three counts will be displayed on the screen:

Previous Count: this count includes the total number of assets of the targeted type that were previously scanned and saved to the website
Count: this shows the number of assets scanned since the Physical Inventory action was started
Count by Product Code: this shows the number of assets scanned since the Physical Inventory action was started, broken down by product code

Creating an Audit

Inventory Audits are created automatically when Physical Inventory actions are saved from mobile devices using TAMobile 6.

We group Inventory records together by Location, Inventory Type (if a "Cycle" Inventory Type) and Use State.

NOTE: When inventory records with different dates are grouped together, the reconciliation is effective as of the most recent inventory record. Therefore, it is important to resolve inventory records as soon as possible.

If a record is saved and it does not match an existing Open Audit, a new Open Audit is created when the Physical Inventory record is saved. If the Physical Inventory record does match and existing Open Audit, the record is added to the Open Audit.

Audit Summary

Audits are 'open' until a user completes reconciliation.

Open Audit Summary The Open Inventory Audit Summary screen lists the basic details (Location, Date, Inventory Type, and Asset Family Collection), the Physical Inventory records created by TAM6 handhelds, and a summarized list of assets grouped by product code. The grouped lists shows the quantity expected to be found, actually found, and the following values:

Difference: simply the number of expected assets minus those found. Note that the found assets may not be the same as the expected assets.
Absolute Difference: the number of missing assets plus the surprise finds.
Missing Assets: unique assets that were thought to be at the location but were not counted during the audit.
Surprise Finds: unique assets that were thought to be an a different location or customer but were scanned the audit location.

Surprise Empty Assets

Surprise finds and missing assets are the primary irregularities found during audits, but there is a third type of problem: 'Surprise Empties.' These are assets thought to be full but scanned as part of an empty audit record. Upon reconciliation, we locate these assets as empty, changing their use states. For clients that use empty product codes, this will change the product code to the appropriate empty one. Therefore, the asset is tallied using its empty product code, on a different line item.

Expected assets and surprise finds can both be surprise empties.

NOTE: If an empty cylinder is scanned during a full inventory, it will not be changed to full. Otherwise, it would incorrectly by pass any analysis, lot setting, etc..

Counted Assets

The counted assets page shows all the assets scanned during an audit, divided into two groups:

Surprise Finds: unique assets that were thought to be an a different location or customer but were scanned the audit location. When this tab is active, the grid displays an extra column: 'Last Known Location'.
Expected Assets: unique assets confirmed to be at the audit location.

This page highlights 'surprise empties' (by marking them with an asterisk and emphasizing the 'Scanned Status' text).

Missing Assets

This page displays unique assets thought to be at the audit location that were not counted during the audit.

Reconciliation

When reconciliation starts, a snapshot of the state of the audit is saved. If any information is added, changed, or deleted (new Physical Inventory records, reclassified assets, etc), the user is prompted the start the reconciliation over.

Reconciliation consists of three parts:

Surprise Finds - Lists assets that were scanned as part of the audit but are not located at the location the audit is for. These will be located at the location when the audit is completed.
Lost Assets - Assets that were thought to be at the location but where not scanned as part of the audit.
Reconciliation Completion - When an audit is completed, the system creates new records that mark the selected missing assets as lost, and locates assets as full or empty, depending on how they were classified during the Physical Inventory action on TAMobile 6.
- A special case exists for assets thought to be full but scanned as empty. Those are located empty during the completion of the reconciliation.

Reconciled Audit Summary

When an audit is reconciled, three things happen:

It is locked. Its data is frozen: no further records will change it, neither additional inventory records at that location nor other location-setting records that might affect the contents of the audit.
We save information about the assets marked as lost or located as a result of the audit and initiate the creation of Mark Lost and Locate records, offline on our service bus.
TrackAbout takes the user to the Reconciled Audit page, which shows the same basic details and summary as the open audit summary page. As long as TrackAbout is processing new records created by the audit, it displays a message indicating how far along it is, e.g., "TrackAbout is finalizing the audit, marking lost assets and locating unexpected assets. 2068 of 2430 assets have been resolved so far. Reload this page to see progress updates and view new records created for the audit". It also displays a list of records created by the audit that indicate which assets where Marked Lost, Located Full, or Located Empty. Here is an example of what this page looks like:

Audits using the Locate Feature

Prepping the System

Determine which location(s) you want to focus on for audits.
Mark the assets at that location as LOST. You can two options for this

1. Use the Current Inventory page to find assets you want to mark as Lost.

Make sure to select the Results: Detailed option so that you get the barcodes for that location.

Use the Mark Assets Lost page and enter the barcodes to Mark Lost.

2.From the website, use the "Remove Stale Inventory" page to find and remove stale assets.

This page lets you find the assets that have not been scanned in X number of days. For a site audit, we recommend you set this to 1 Day.
Once you find the assets, you can mark them all as lost.

Note: If you want to compare what TrackAbout thought was at the location with what actually was at the location the best way is to take a snapshot of the "Current Inventory" report before you start this scanning and then again after you finish removing the stale inventory.

Conducting the Audit

Use the "Locate" Action (This might be named something different in you system) on your TrackAbout Mobile devices to scan all assets you can find on site.

It is ok if you scan the same asset multiple times, the goal is just to get them all scanned.
It is ok if this scanning take more than a day to complete.
It is definitely ok to use more than one device.

Once the Audit is complete, the Current Inventory report will reflect the updated list of what was scanned. The balance for this location should now be accurate. Everything not scanned will remain in a status of Lost until it is scanned.

Site Preparation

A Note on Site preparation. Save time and energy during the scanning and reconciliation phases of your Physical Inventory by spending some time on Site preparation:

Some tips to assist:

1. In the days leading up to the Audit/Inventory, make sure all tracked assets are tagged and barcoded.

2. Consider how the Inventory will be done and organize appripriately

a. Complete - Identify where all the Full and Empty assets are located and make sure they're grouped together if possible. This way your operators have to do less hunting for Full or Empty assets.

b. Cycle Counts - For example, where are your specialty gas cylinders? where are your wheelchairs? Do some scouting before hand to identify locations of target asset populations. Group these together, if possible, to make it easier for your operators to conduct scanning.