Counting Tasks

Counting tasks are specialized tasks designed for inventory cycle counts. They make it easy to count products on the shelf and compare your counts to expected quantities.

How Counting Tasks Work

A counting task contains a list of products, each with an expected quantity. Your job is to physically count the items on the shelf and record what you find. FastQuery compares your count to the expected quantity and highlights any discrepancies.

Performing a Count

1. Open the counting task from your My Tasks tab
2. The counting interface shows the list of products to count
3. Use the barcode scanner to scan each item — the app automatically records your count
4. Swipe through items to move to the next product
5. When you’ve counted everything, finalize the count to generate a report

Understanding the Color Indicators

As you count, color-coded indicators help you see your progress at a glance:

• Green — Your count matches the expected quantity. You’re all set.
• Orange — The item hasn’t been counted yet, or the count is below the expected quantity. Keep counting.
• Blue — The item has been counted to zero.
• Red — Your count is higher than expected. Double-check for errors or misplaced items.

Navigation

Items in a counting task are sorted by bin, making it easy to work through your count aisle by aisle. This way you can walk the store in a logical order instead of jumping around.

Creating Counting Tasks

There are several ways counting tasks can be created:

From Inventory Selection (Web App)

1. Open the inventory grid in the web app
2. Apply filters to narrow down what you want to count — for example:
   • One aisle or shelf — filter by bin
   • A category or department — filter by category
   • A brand or supplier — filter by manufacturer or supplier
3. Click Create Tasks in the toolbar and choose the counting task type
4. The task is created with the filtered products and their expected quantities. Large selections are automatically split into multiple tasks so they stay manageable.

Creating tasks from the inventory grid is available to admins and managers.

From the AI Assistant

You can also ask the AI to set up a count in plain language — for example, “Create a counting task for aisle 5” or “Have someone count the paint display.” The AI drafts the task and asks you to confirm before creating it.

Automatic Creation from Shelf Scanning

If your store uses Zippedi shelf-scanning robots, counting tasks can be created automatically when the robot detects discrepancies between what’s on the shelf and what’s expected. This lets your team focus on verifying and resolving issues rather than finding them.

From POS Discrepancy Reports

When your point-of-sale system flags inventory discrepancies — for example, an item that sold but shows zero stock — counting tasks can be generated to verify the actual quantities on the shelf.

Finalizing a Count

When you’ve finished counting all items in the task, tap Finalize to close the count. This:

• Records your final counts
• Generates a summary report showing matches and discrepancies
• Marks the task as complete

Once a count is finalized, you can also bulk-print fresh price tags for every item in the task — useful after a section reset or pricing change. See Label Printing.