Why Are My Cycle Count Dates Wrong?

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you spent hours and hours setting up your cycle counts, religiously recording your counts and then find that all the 'Next Count Dates' are wrong? Or maybe you ran a SmartList and saw that all your 'A' parts have the same 'Next Count Date'?

Most users of Great Plains inventory only setup cycle counts once a year, or if you are really good at it, once every few years. So, when the 'Next Count Dates' are wrong you find yourself scratching your head for two reasons.

The first is 'How did this happen'? The second would then be 'How do I fix it'? The answer to the first is not always easy to figure out, but here are some reasons that the 'Next Count Dates' get out of whack so to speak.

• Full Physical Inventory - When an item has been setup to be cycle counted, most users will spread the 'Next Count Date' for the item(s) evenly over the count cycle. For example, say you have 90 items that you want to count every 90 days. GP allows users to count one of the items every day for 90 days so that after 90 days all of the items have been counted. When the item is counted, the 'Next Count Date' is calculated to be 90 day from the date it was last counted. So when a full physical inventory count is done, all items now have the same last counted date so all 90 day items will have the same 'Next Count Date'. 90 days from the full physical inventory count date.
• Items were counted 'Out of Cycle'. For instance, if you have a site that has items spread out over time to be counted and your company for some reason decides to count everything at that site on the same date, the 'Next Count Dates' will all be the same depending on the cycle count assignment interval assigned to it.

These are the two most common situations I have found. The fortunate part is the 'Next Count Dates' are easy to reset so that items are again spread out over time. Open the Stock Cycle Count Assignment window in Inventory Cards.

I find that the easiest way is to assign an ABC code to every item if you haven't already done so. To assign ABC codes use the Item ABC Analysis wizard in Inventory Routines.

When in the Stock Count Cycle Assignment window, users are asked to enter the Stock Count Interval Days (How often you want to count the items in this group). Enter a Date and Time to Start Counting. This date will be the first date GP will use to assign the items and spread the 'Next Count Date' for each item in the group. If you set the interval to 90 days and have 90 parts in the group, the first item will have a 'Next Count Date' of 4/12/2017 (as in the example) and the next item 'Next Count Date' will be 4/13/2017 and so on until all items are assigned a new 'Next Count Date'. Keep in mind that inventory calendar down days are skipped, in other words an item will not have a 'Next Count Date' that is an inventory calendar down day.

Select the Stock Count Range (range of items to assign to this interval and start date) and insert into the box. In this example, I have chosen to count all my A items once every 90 days starting on 4/12/2017. If you click on the Details button you will see a list of the items selected and their current 'Next Count Date'. Click Process and you have just reset all your 'Next Count Dates'.

Not that hard was it. Happy counting.