Before opening stock, choose the balance moment
An opening quantity needs a timestamp and a boundary. If deliveries arrive while orders leave, a count taken over several hours can mix different moments. Choose a quiet cutover window or maintain a movement log that bridges the count to the agreed opening time.
Name the person controlling the count and the people allowed to move stock during it. Label counted areas and specify what happens to urgent receipts or shipments. A perfect import cannot repair a file that counts the same goods before dispatch and again after a transfer. The import is the last step in establishing the starting position, not the first.
Keep held goods visible without making them freely available
Count damaged goods, inspection stock, samples and customer-owned items according to your defined inventory boundary. Decide how each category should appear in the destination system. Do not mix “physically here” with “available to promise” merely because a single quantity column is easier to prepare.
In a fictional warehouse, 120 units are present: 100 are sellable, 12 are awaiting inspection and eight are customer-owned. Those categories should not become an unexplained available balance of 120. Ask your vendor to demonstrate the chosen representation, and have operations approve it. Financial ownership and physical custody may require different reporting.
Test the stock import as a separate setup step
inFlow's getting-started guide identifies product name, location and quantity as mandatory columns for its stock-level import; product details and costs have their own setup. Use the current template and inspect its mapping before importing. Costing-method choices can affect how costs should be established, so involve the person responsible for accounting.
Select a sample covering two locations, a zero balance, a multipack and any traceability requirement. Compare the imported total with both the count sheet and the visible item records. Check that quantities arrived in the intended stocking unit and location. A successful upload notification does not demonstrate that the business meaning of the data is correct.
Approve the difference report
Create a reconciliation with counted quantity, uploaded quantity, destination quantity and explanation for any difference. Investigate exceptions individually rather than adding a balancing adjustment to make a grand total agree. Two opposite errors can cancel each other in a total while both item records remain wrong.
Preserve the original count, approved import file, mapping and import result. Record who approved quantities and who approved values. Begin normal transactions only after the mandatory checks pass and the team knows which system is authoritative. If you cannot establish reliable opening stock, postpone the cutover or restrict it to a reconciled scope. This operational method does not prescribe inventory valuation or tax treatment; those decisions need the business's appropriate accounting review.
Sources used for this page
These records support the facts and comparisons above. Merchant-controlled records are labelled so you can separate product claims from independent evidence.
- inFlow getting started — Merchant documentation · inflowinventory.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-24