Stock and stocktaking: what the software takes off your hands and what it does not

Rather filter for yourself? All 14 solutions with 14 criteria in one table Filter by profile and features, set a budget, read the columns side by side. This article gives the bearings — the table is the tool. To the comparison table →

Why stock figures drift apart

Not because of the software. A stock figure in the system is a roll-forward: what came in, what went out, what should be left. Every movement not recorded shifts the calculation — the item taken as a sample, the scrap thrown away, the return that landed on the shelf before it was booked.

From that follows what a solution has to deliver: bring the recording to where the movement happens. Whoever notes in the office what happened in the warehouse is not recording movements but memories.

Four questions about recording in the warehouse

They decide the stock figure more than any report does.

1. What do you record with at the shelf?

   Phone, tablet or a handheld with a scanner. 8 of the 14 solutions compared have a mobile app. Without one, things get noted on paper and typed in later — twice the work and one source of error.

2. Does the connection reach into the warehouse?

   In a cellar, a hall with a metal roof or an outdoor store, often not. 12 of the 14 solutions keep working without a connection and transmit later. Test it on site, not in the data sheet.

3. How does the stocktake run?

   Print a count sheet and type it in, or count on the device and see differences immediately. The difference is a day’s work a year — and the likelihood that things get counted instead of estimated.

4. Who may correct?

   A stock correction is an entry and belongs in a log. If anyone can correct and nobody sees who did, the year-end stock figure is an opinion.

What the stocktake has to do with the balance sheet

Merchandise stock is a balance sheet item and has to be valued. Software rolls the stock forward and values it by the configured method; whether the quantity is right it does not know. That is why the physical stocktake stays necessary, even with perfectly kept inventory software.

In practice: the software does not save the counting but the arithmetic afterwards. It shows differences per item, values the corrected stock, and records the correction with its date — so the valuation stays traceable at year end.

Whoever wants to reduce the effort reduces it not at the stocktake but in day-to-day recording: the fewer movements are missing, the smaller the difference to be explained at year end.

Frequently asked questions

Where the figures come from

Figures on the survey

Own survey, as of July 2026. Every figure in the text is calculated when the page is built.

Financial reporting

Code of Obligations, Article 958c on the principles of financial reporting and Article 960 on valuation. The specific stocktaking method is a question of the individual case.