Also called cycle counting, rolling stock count, perpetual stock check
A cycle count checks a small slice of stock at a time. You might count one shelf, one category or the 50 fastest-moving products each week. Over a few months every item gets counted, and the busiest ones get counted more often.
A once-a-year stocktake means closing the shop, tired staff and errors that went unnoticed for months. Small, frequent counts are more accurate, and when a count differs from the system you can still remember what happened last week. The shop also never has to close for a full day of counting.
A grocery store might count its top 100 items every fortnight and the rest once a quarter. If the system says 48 packs of a detergent and the shelf has 44, the 4-pack difference is recorded as an adjustment with a reason, such as damaged or missing. Kownt X supports cycle counts by location, with adjustment reasons kept in stock history.