Exporting results to Excel

After the count, the work turns into a result, and the result lives in a table that an accountant, a manager or an auditor will open. A good table is understood without questions; a bad one prompts "what is this column?" every time. Below: which columns the final table needs, how to value differences in so'm and how to store the file.

The table structure

If the final table has the following columns, it can be used without further explanation:

• article, name and code;
• zone or bin;
• booked: the balance in the books;
• counted: the actual quantity;
• difference: counted minus booked;
• purchase price and the value of the difference;
• the counter's name and the time of counting;
• status: "recounted", "approved", "unusable" and so on.

Agree on the sign beforehand: a negative difference is a shortage and a positive one a surplus. If everyone uses a different sign, the accountant and the manager will read the same table in opposite ways.

For recounted positions, keep the first count, the recount and the final figure in separate columns. Then the table itself answers "why did this number change?". The figure in the final column enters the report only after the manager approves it.

Valuing the difference in so'm

Differences should be seen in money, not in pieces: five bottles of water and five phones are not the same. The formula is simple: value of difference = difference × purchase price. Value a shortage at purchase price, not selling price, because what was lost cost money; it is not missed profit.

An example. A count covers 650 positions, and 38 show a difference. Say the shortages total 3,260,000 so'm and the surpluses 780,000 so'm. The net result is minus 2,480,000 so'm. The accuracy figure is (650 − 38) / 650, about 94.2 percent. One important point: the net figure alone is not enough. A surplus on one item and a shortage on another is often a sign of mixed-up goods (an item put in the wrong place), so show both sums separately.

Making the table easy to work with

• Keep the raw result on one sheet and do the analysis on another. The original figures then cannot change by accident.
• Numbers must be in number format. If a figure sits left-aligned in its cell, it is text, and totals and sorting will not work.
• Freeze the header row and switch on a filter. A "difference not equal to zero" filter leaves only the problem rows.
• Highlight large differences with colour: conditional formatting turns rows above a set amount red by itself, so the manager sees them first.
• Build a pivot table: differences by zone, category and counter, plus the 20 largest differences by value.
• Before sending, copy the relevant sheet as "values only". Formulas linked to other files show an error (#REF!) on someone else's computer.

Sending and storing the file

The accountant needs two things: the approved list of differences with comments, and a summary sheet. Accountants usually post surpluses and shortages with separate documents, so use a filter to split the table in two: surpluses on one sheet, shortages on another. A manager needs only the summary: how many positions were counted, how many show a difference, the shortage and surplus totals, the ten largest differences. Put the date and warehouse in the file name: "2026-10_warehouse-A_count-results.xlsx".

Choose one folder for the archive, give it read-only access and keep a backup elsewhere. In a year you will want to open an old count and compare it with the current one, so the column order should be the same every time.

Common mistakes

• Only the difference is recorded, without the booked and counted figures. Without them the difference cannot be checked.
• No date or counter column, so nobody knows which shift counted what.
• Mixed decimal separators: for goods measured in kilograms and litres, commas and points turn values into text.
• The shortage is valued at selling price, so the loss looks much bigger than it is.
• The file is dropped into a general Telegram chat and commercial data ends up with outsiders.

Conclusion

The Excel table is the final product of the count, so it must be both clear and repeatable in structure: booked, counted, difference, value, comment. If you would rather get the result ready-made, order a count from StockCheck: when it is finished the result is handed over as Excel, PDF or a file for 1C.