Inventory Counts

An inventory count is how you make the stock on file agree with what is actually on your shelves. You walk the warehouse, write down what you find, enter it here, and then sync the count — which adjusts your on-hand quantities to match what was counted.

Open it from Parts → Inventory Counts.

Your first five counts are free. Every company can start five inventory counts — fully working, syncing and adjusting real stock — before it needs the paid Inventory Counts feature. That is enough to run the whole thing on your own data and see what it does. After that, starting a further count needs the feature turned on; see Inventory for how. Counts you have already entered are never taken away, and you can always finish and sync one you started.

How a Count Works

There are two steps, and the second one is permanent.

Enter a tag for everything you counted. One tag is one count slip: a part, where it was, and how many you found.
Sync the count. Backbone works out the difference between what you counted and what its records held, and records one inventory change for each tag to close the gap.

That is the whole workflow. There is no separate step to load original quantities — if you have used the older Backbone, that button is gone, and its work happens automatically as you enter tags.

The “Counted As Of” Date and Time

This is the most important field on a count, and it is worth understanding before you enter anything.

A count is taken as of a moment — not as of whenever somebody finished typing it in. Everything is measured against that moment: what the records held, and the date stamped on every adjustment the sync writes.

This is what lets you count the warehouse on Friday evening and enter the paperwork on Monday. Set Counted As Of to Friday evening, and the corrections land on Friday — so anything you shipped or received over the weekend still applies on top of them, exactly as it should.

Changing it re-measures everything. If you change the Counted As Of date after entering tags, every tag’s original quantity is recalculated against the new moment. Backbone warns you first. The same is true of the count’s default location.

Entering Tags

The Tags tab is where the counting goes. Two ways to fill it in, depending on how you counted:

New Tag adds a blank row you type into — the natural way to transcribe a stack of paper slips.
Add Parts… lets you pick parts from your catalog and creates a row for each, so you only have to fill in the quantities. Use this when you are counting from a list of what should be there.

What each column means

Tag # — the number written on the paper slip. It is how you match a row back to the piece of paper, and it does not have to be filled in.
Part # — type the part number and Backbone fills in the name. If there is no part with that number, it tells you straight away rather than at the end.
Location — where this was counted. Leave it blank and the tag uses the count’s default location.
Bin — a free-text note for your own reference, such as an aisle or shelf. It does not affect anything.
Counted — how many you found. Zero is a perfectly good answer, and an important one: it means the records think you have some and you do not.
Original Qty — what the records held as of the count’s Counted As Of moment. Filled in for you.
Variance — Counted minus Original Qty. This is the number the count exists to find.
Unit $ — what you value a unit at, so the variance can be expressed in money as well as quantity.
Void — retracts a slip without deleting it. A voided tag stays as a record that it existed but counts for nothing.

Two tags for the same part? That is normal — two people counting different aisles of one warehouse. Behind them is a single stock figure, so Backbone splits it between the two tags in proportion to what each one counted. That is why editing one tag can change the Original Qty on another: they are sharing one number, and it is being re-divided.

Syncing the Count

The Syncing tab shows the full variance worksheet — every tag, what was counted, what the records held then, what they hold now, and the difference in both quantity and money. Read it before you sync; it is the last chance to spot a slip that was entered twice or against the wrong part.

When you press Sync Inventory, Backbone records one inventory change per tag, dated at the count’s Counted As Of moment, with a note naming the count. Your on-hand quantities then match what you counted.

You can only do this once. A synced count is frozen — it cannot be edited, re-synced or reopened, and the sync cannot be undone. If a count turns out to be wrong, the way to fix it is to take another count. That is also how it works on paper.

What can stop a sync

A tag with no part or no location — there is nothing to adjust. Backbone names the tags concerned.
Two tags with the same tag number — almost always one slip entered twice, which would count that stock twice. Give each its own number, or void the duplicate.

If stock moved while you were entering tags

It happens on a large count, and it is handled. The sync recalculates from your inventory history at the moment it runs, so the adjustment is correct even if the Original Qty column on screen is slightly behind. Your stock still lands on what you counted.

After the Count

The Inventory Changes tab lists everything the count did to your stock — one row per tag, each dated at the count’s moment rather than when you pressed Sync. The same movements appear on each part’s Inventory tab, with a note naming the count that caused them.

In the Inventory Counts list, synced counts are hidden by default and greyed out when shown, because they accumulate and there is nothing left to do to them. Tick Show synced to look up what a past count found.

Inventory — how stock moves the rest of the time, and how to turn Inventory Counts on.
Parts — creating and maintaining the parts a count adjusts.
Company locations — the locations stock is counted and held at.

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