You carry out a physical inventory of your products in the warehouse for stock control and balance sheet purposes.
To perform a physical inventory, you can choose between various inventory procedures such as:
Periodic Physical Inventory (Storage-Bin Specific and Product Specific)
Continuous Physical Inventory Procedures
Ad-hoc Physical Inventory (Storage Bin Specific and Product Specific)
Putaway Physical Inventory
Low Stock/Zero Stock Physical Inventory
Low Stock/Zero Stock Check
Storage Bin Check
Cycle Counting
External Physical Inventory
Which includes:
Which includes the following: Sample-Based Physical Inventory
Periodic Physical Inventory
SAP EWM supports an annual physical inventory (storage bin-specific and product-specific). In an annual physical inventory, you record all stocks on a certain day (or within a short time-period). This is usually done at the end of the fiscal year. During this time, you can prohibit stock movements. You can also use this procedure to take a physical inventory for storage bins and quants that are subject to continuous inventory, but have not had any stock movements in the current fiscal year. A product-specific periodic or annual inventory is also possible.
Continuous Physical Storage Inventory Procedures
Ad-Hoc Physical Inventory (Storage-Bin Specific and Product Specific): For storage bin-specific ad-hoc physical inventory, you take inventory for certain storage bins. You can do this at any time of the fiscal year. This physical inventory procedure is manually controlled. The product-specific ad-hoc physical inventory is similar to storage bin-specific procedure, except that you perform it on products.
Putaway Physical Inventory: When stock if first placed on an empty bin in the fiscal year, the inventory process is triggered. The warehouse employee confirms the warehouse task of putaway and as a result, performs the physical inventory.
Low Stock/Zero Stock Physical Inventory: As a prerequisite in this case, you must define (in Customizing) a quantity threshold of physical inventory area-specific settings. If picking causes levels to fall below the threshold, the low stock physical inventory is triggered. The warehouse employee confirms the picking warehouse task and the system creates the physical inventory document in the background. For a zero stock physical inventory, the threshold value is zero.
Low Stock/Zero Stock Check: The low stock / zero stock check is a variant of the low stock physical inventory, where no physical inventory document is created. This check can be done in addition to a low stock / zero stock physical inventory and in can be done multiple times (while a physical inventory document is only created once in a fiscal period).
Storage Bin Check: In this procedure, the system checks if a product is on the correct storage bin. This procedure can be triggered manually (at any chosen time). This check is recommended if a product is damaged. This check does not create a physical inventory document.
Product-Specific Cycle Counting
SAP EWM supports cycle counting, which means that you carry out a physical inventory of your stocks at regular intervals during a fiscal year. By allocating products to different classes (for example, A, B, and C), you specify the intervals or cycles when you take a physical inventory of those products. This allows you to take inventory of fast-moving products in your warehouse more frequently than inventory of slow-moving products, for example.
