Say goodbye to stressful year-end counts at your branch – digital stocktaking with COSYS

Stocktaking is one of the most important yet often most dreaded tasks in retail branches. Every retailer knows the challenge: counting thousands of items, ensuring data accuracy, avoiding downtime, and balancing the process alongside ongoing sales. Traditional manual counting with pen and paper is not only time-consuming but also highly error-prone. Inaccuracies lead to discrepancies between the system and the actual stock, which in turn result in financial losses, wrong reorders, or even customer dissatisfaction when items are not available as expected.

To overcome these challenges, modern retailers rely increasingly on digital stocktaking solutions. COSYS offers a powerful stocktaking software combined with a mobile app that simplifies the counting process in the store and a central Web Desk for evaluation and control. Retailers who do not wish to invest in expensive hardware can additionally benefit from COSYS’ scanner rental service. This combination provides maximum flexibility, transparency, and accuracy during the annual or interim stocktake.

Typical stocktaking problems in retail branches

Retail companies, whether small shops or nationwide chains, face similar difficulties during stocktaking:

• High error rates due to manual capturing methods
• Time pressure because stocktaking often must be carried out outside regular opening hours or in very limited time slots
• Incomplete transparency since branch managers and headquarters often lack real-time insight into the progress of the count
• Data consolidation issues, when lists from different employees or branches have to be merged manually
• Resource constraints, as trained staff and technical equipment are limited

These problems make stocktaking a costly and unpopular task. A digital solution addresses these pain points directly.

COSYS stocktaking app – functions for retail

At the heart of the COSYS solution is the mobile stocktaking app. Installed on mobile computers, smartphones, or tablets, the app guides employees through the process step by step and ensures fast, accurate data capture. Key features include:

• Multi-client capability: Retailers with several brands or subsidiaries can manage each client separately while still benefiting from one central system. This makes it easier to keep stocktaking data organized and ensures clarity across different entities.
• Full-text article search: Employees can quickly find items by scanning barcodes or entering article numbers, names, or descriptions. This accelerates the count, especially for products without clear labels or when barcodes are damaged.
• Article variant support: Retail often deals with product variants such as size, color, or packaging. The app supports capturing these variations directly, reducing errors and ensuring that each variant is accurately reflected in the inventory.
• Capturing of serials and batches: For products that require traceability, like electronics with serial numbers or food items with batch numbers, the app makes it easy to record this information while counting. This function ensures compliance with legal requirements and quality standards.
• Capturing articles on product group level: Sometimes, only an approximate overview by product group is needed instead of a detailed item-level count. The app allows employees to record quantities at this higher level, which saves time and still delivers valuable insights.

With these functions, the COSYS app adapts to the different needs of retailers and ensures that every stocktake is faster, more reliable, and less stressful.

COSYS Web Desk – Control and transparency

In addition to the mobile app, COSYS provides the Web Desk, a browser-based tool that centralizes all stocktaking data. The Web Desk is particularly valuable for store managers and headquarters staff, as it offers real-time monitoring and evaluation. Main functions include:

• Difference list: Immediately highlights discrepancies between the target stock in the ERP system and the actual counted stock. This allows errors to be detected quickly and corrections to be made.
• Stocktake progress: Displays how far each branch has progressed with the count, ensuring that management always has an up-to-date overview.
• Overview of branches: Headquarters can see and compare the results from all branches, ensuring uniform procedures and identifying potential irregularities.
• Counted positions per day: Provides detailed insight into how many items were counted daily, helping managers assess productivity.
• Quantity per stocktaker: Tracks the performance of each individual employee, allowing for fair evaluation and optimization of resources.

This combination of transparency and detailed reporting ensures that stocktaking becomes not only more efficient but also a valuable management tool.

Hardware made easy – Scanner rental from COSYS

Not every retailer has the budget or long-term need for professional barcode scanners. To cover temporary peaks during the annual stocktake, COSYS offers a barcode scanner rental service. Retailers can rent modern MDE devices for the duration of the stocktake, preconfigured with the COSYS app. This eliminates high investment costs while ensuring that employees have robust, ergonomic devices that significantly speed up the process compared to using smartphones.

Conclusion

Stocktaking no longer has to be a stressful annual event full of errors and time pressure. With the COSYS stocktaking software, retailers gain a mobile app that supports all key functions such as multi-client capability, article search, variant handling, and serial/batch capturing. The COSYS Web Desk provides full transparency through difference lists, branch overviews, and progress reporting. And for retailers who prefer not to purchase hardware, COSYS offers a practical scanner rental service.

Together, these components make stocktaking in retail faster, more accurate, and more cost-efficient—turning a necessary obligation into an opportunity for better stock management and increased competitiveness.