The physical inventory process involves counting the physical inventory of a warehouse, from the preparation, through the actual counting and the entering of count results, to the approval of those count results, and the updating of the inventory in both SAP EWM and SAP ERP.
A physical inventory may be required by financial accounting rules or tax regulations to ensure an accurate inventory value. It may also be required by management to count inventory quantities so products can be restocked or corrected.
You use the physical inventory functions in EWM to carry out a physical inventory of products for stock control and balance sheet purposes. You have the following options:
Storage-bin-specific physical inventory: This inventory is counted at the storage bin level, and, therefore, all the products and HUs in this storage bin are counted.
Product-specific physical inventory: This inventory is based solely on the products in one or more storage bins and/or HUs.
SAP EWM Physical Inventory Process
The SAP EWM physical inventory process is illustrated in the following figure:
During the SAP EWM physical inventory process, a physical inventory document is created that contains the bins/products to be counted. This document can be printed using the PPF function, or the physical inventory items can be counted using the RF framework.
If you have doubts about a count result, you can trigger a recount. In this case, the system creates a new PI document with reference to the original PI document.
After the count or recount process has been completed, the differences can be posted and the inventory completed.
Counting Using Mobile Devices
The use of mobile devices in the physical inventory process offers advantages. First of all, it is not necessary to block bins for the physical inventory. There is also much less chance of entering wrong counting results as can happen with paper-based counting. For bulk storage with handling units, you can carry out the physical inventory counting with handling unit collective counting. This means that the total count results can be entered without verifying each HU number.
For the processing of physical inventory documents with mobile devices, you need to set up the determination of a queue which is relevant for RF-processing. Additionally, with a warehouse order creation rule specifically for physical inventory, you can control the size and the counting sequence of physical inventory documents.
It is also possible to create physical inventory documents ad-hoc with a mobile device, either for separate counting or for direct counting.
Paper-Based Counting
It is of course also possible to print out a counting document and to enter the results in EWM. There are different transactions available for the data entry. With SAP S/4HANA based EWM an SAP Fiori app is also available.
Physical Inventory Status
The status relationships present throughout the physical inventory progress are shown in the following figure:
Physical inventory documents can be created with an inactive or an active status. The behavior is controlled by the reason for physical inventory that you select when you create the physical inventory document. If you do not select a reason, the standard reason that is assigned to the physical inventory procedure is used.
Completeness of Inventory
An inventory of a physical inventory area is complete when you have counted all the relevant storage bins. A warehouse inventory is complete when you have carried out an inventory on all the relevant physical inventory areas.
A product inventory is completed when you have counted all the stock of this product per physical inventory area and party entitled to dispose.
The completeness of a physical inventory area, or of the complete warehouse, remains intact. This means that if you have completely inventoried your warehouse in January, the beginning of the physical inventory year, it remains completely inventoried in December at the end of the physical inventory year.