The crew showed up, they started counting, they counted everything. What do you need at the end? Well, it depends on how they counted it!
If it was a “Financial” count where just dollars and units were counted, you will want to see how much was counted in each Area (based on the location within the store where the product was counted), and in each Department (based on the categories or departments that the various product was counted under—Grocery, Drinks, Backroom, etc.). Perhaps you also want to see what was previously counted under each Area and/or Department; this can be set up as well, but it only works if there have not been significant changes to the layout of the store. For example, if Area 101 was a small gondola on the left side of the store, but expanded to a large gondola, you wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples, right?
If it was a UPC Scan inventory, you will want the same thing as you’d want for a Financial count, but there are additional details you can get. Perhaps you want to know what was scanned, but not in the master UPC file. Or there were on-hands loaded, and you want to know where there were large variances between what was counted and what you thought you had on-hand.
Maybe you want to review High Dollar or High Unit amounts to ensure nothing was entered incorrectly. Or, you need to see what was counted just by one auditor. All of these options are available, some electronically.
You need to determine exactly what types of reporting you will need well in advance of an inventory count so that the programming can be set up properly. Otherwise, you’ll be given a pile of data without the tools to process the information successfully.