When the quantity you count physically does not match the quantity shown in the app (the recorded stock), there is always a cause for the discrepancy recorded in inventory management. The cause can be found in Inventory - History, by checking the stock movements from the days when you noticed the discrepancy. A stock reset does not answer the question: it only aligns the figure and removes the discrepancy you were trying to explain.
Before you start looking, clarify two things:
Location. Inventory is managed separately for each location, and the location is a filter you select from the selector, not something inferred from your account. Check which location you have selected before drawing any conclusions. See the article “Inventory is managed by location: why stock differs from one location to another.”
The exact item name. The same account can contain multiple items with almost identical names — for example, “Coffee”, “Coffee Beans”, and “Coffee Beans 1 kg” — each with its own stock record. Search for the item name under Inventory - Stock and check how many similar items you have. This is the most common cause of a physical vs. recorded stock discrepancy: goods are received into one item, while the recipe deducts stock from another.
Verification steps:
Open Inventory - History (you can also open it quickly from the Stock list, using the item's row).
Select the location and the exact date range when you noticed the discrepancy. The date range can be selected down to the minute.
Search for the item by name or SKU code, using the magnifying glass in the top-right corner.
Go through the movements for the relevant day and compare the stock decrease with that day's sales. If the discrepancy is greater than what could have been sold, the stock decrease is not coming from sales.
What should you look for in the history?
Receipts entered under a different item. Check which item the goods were received into and which item is used by the recipe for the product sold. If there are two different items with similar names, one will keep increasing while the other goes into negative stock. Correct the recipe so that it uses the same item that the receipts are added to.
A recipe with an incorrect quantity or unit. A quantity entered in grams when the item is tracked in kilograms (or millilitres instead of litres) means consumption that is one thousand times higher or lower. Search for the stock item name in Product Catalog to see which recipes it appears in and with what quantity.
Transfers between locations. A transfer out decreases the quantity at your location and increases it at another location.
Consumption slips, internal use, donations, production. These are real stock movements recorded by someone on your team; they appear in the history with their respective tag.
Cancelled or reversed receipts. Check whether the cancellation returned the goods to stock.
Stock resets or inventories performed by someone else. A stock reset and an inventory adjustment are absolute movements: they are not added to the balance, but instead set it to their specified value.
Important: Stock is automatically deducted after a sale, but not instantly — the movement is recorded by an automated process a few minutes after the receipt and receives the sale's date and time. If you check immediately after a sale, a small discrepancy is normal and should disappear shortly.
Don’t perform an inventory count every day just to find the discrepancy
Inventory counts and stock resets are tools for periodic reconciliation, not troubleshooting methods. If you count and reset the stock every day, the reset removes the exact discrepancy you were supposed to investigate, and the next day you have to start all over again. A one-time inventory adjustment to restart from a correct balance AFTER you have identified the cause is a different matter and is perfectly fine.
If the history doesn’t show anything unusual
Contact us via chat and send us: the location, the exact item name as it appears in the app, the days when you noticed the discrepancy, and the discrepancy value for each day.
Tags: [physical vs. recorded stock, stock discrepancy, stock is negative, missing inventory, stock doesn’t match, how to find the cause of a stock discrepancy, stock movement history, duplicate item, two items with the same name, daily inventory]