Stock take

A stock take is a physical inventory count of a single storage bin. You scan the stock codes of the items physically present in the bin, and the EDC compares the scanned codes against the items it expects to find in that bin (the StorageBinItem records). The result is recorded as a permanent reconciliation report.

A stock take answers one question for each bin: does what is physically in the bin match what the EDC says should be in the bin? Each scanned/expected code is classified as:

  • matched — expected (registered in the bin) and scanned;

  • missing — expected, but not scanned (a discrepancy);

  • unexpected — scanned, but not registered in this bin (a discrepancy). If the scanned code is not found anywhere in the system, it is still recorded, with no linked stock.

Note

A stock take is an audit snapshot. Submitting a stock take does not move stock or change the contents of the bin. It records what was found so that discrepancies can be investigated and resolved through the normal stock workflows.

Start a stock take

From the central or site pharmacy home page, select Stock take. This opens the stock take landing page listing every bin currently in use, together with its current item count and a summary of its most recent stock take.

Find the bin you want to count and click Start stock take. This opens the scan page for that bin, showing the number of items registered in the bin and a reference list of the expected stock codes.

Scan the bin

With the cursor in the Scan stock code field, scan (or type) the code on each physical item in the bin and press Enter, or click Add. As you scan:

  • codes are upper-cased and duplicates are ignored automatically;

  • each scanned code appears as a removable badge, and a running codes scanned counter is shown next to the expected count;

  • if a scanned code is in the expected list, its row is highlighted.

If you scan something in error, click the × on its badge to remove it. When every item physically present in the bin has been scanned, click Submit.

Review the results

On submit, the EDC compares the scanned codes against the expected codes and records the stock take with its summary counts and one entry per code, classified as matched, missing, or unexpected. You are then taken to the results page for that stock take, where the items are grouped by outcome.

Completed stock takes can also be reviewed from the admin under Pharmacy: Stock Takes, where each record shows its counts and an inline list of items, plus a link to the results page. Stock take records are read-only apart from the free-text note field.

Discrepancy report

From the stock take landing page, select Discrepancy report to see, grouped by location, only those bins whose most recent stock take has missing or unexpected items. Bins whose latest count matched exactly are omitted. A printable PDF version of the report is available from the same page.

Use this report to drive follow-up: locate missing items, return unexpected items to their correct bin, and re-run the stock take once the bin has been corrected.

Resolving discrepancies

A stock take reports discrepancies; you resolve them from the discrepancy report (or the results page), and every correction is written to the stock ledger so the chain of custody is preserved. Each resolved item is linked to the transaction that resolved it and is marked Resolved in place.

Start by investigating each flagged code. On the discrepancy report, every missing or unexpected code links to that item’s ledger (transaction history), which shows where the item has been and what last happened to it. A code marked (not in system) was scanned but is not known to the EDC at all — most often a mislabelled or foreign label that needs to be investigated by hand and cannot be resolved from the report.

The report also cross-checks each code against the other bins and shows a hint where relevant. In particular, a missing item whose code was also scanned as unexpected in another bin is flagged with a warning — it is most likely misfiled there, not lost, so resolve it from that bin rather than marking it lost here. A quieter note shows when a code is currently registered in a different bin than the one it appears in.

Each open discrepancy has a Resolve control in its row.

Missing (expected in the bin, but not found):

  • A stock take reconciles location, so the only outcome a count can conclude is lost: enter a short reason and click Mark lost. (Condition dispositions — damaged, expired, voided — are made in the stock-adjustment workflow, where the item is in hand.)

  • If the item is accounted for in another bin (the row shows “also scanned as unexpected in bin NN” or “now registered in bin NN”), it is not lost, so Mark lost is not offered. Investigate, then click Acknowledge with a note to clear the row.

Unexpected (scanned in the bin, but not registered there):

  • The item is physically present, so click Add to bin to record it as belonging to the bin being counted. No reason is asked for — an audit note is recorded automatically. The row then shows Resolved with an Undo button; clicking Undo returns the item to its original bin and re-opens the discrepancy.

  • Because the same item being missing from another bin is the other half of the same problem, Add to bin also clears any open missing record for that code in other bins — both sides are resolved by the one move, and a single Undo re-opens both.

  • If the item does not belong in this bin, move it to its correct bin from that bin’s page instead.

  • Some unexpected items cannot be added to a bin — a code not in the system, or a stock already in a terminal state (e.g. dispensed). These show Cannot add to bin with the reason, and an Acknowledge action: after investigating, record a short note and click Acknowledge to mark the row reviewed and clear it. Undo re-opens it.

Once a missing row is resolved it shows a Resolved badge linking to the resolving transaction. Note that the bin remains on the discrepancy report until you redo the stock take for it, since the report reflects the counts captured at the time of the take. When the bin’s physical contents and the EDC records agree again, return to the bin on the stock take landing page (or use Redo stock take) and run the count again. A clean count drops the bin from the discrepancy report.