MYOB Acumatica Stocktake: Full Counts, Cycle Counts and Scan-and-Count for Australian Distributors

A MYOB Acumatica stocktake runs from Prepare Physical Count (IN504000). A physical inventory type decides which items are listed, Generate PI freezes them, counts are keyed on IN305010, scanned on IN305020 or imported from Excel, and Complete PI on IN305000 posts the adjustment. The Advanced Physical Counts feature adds cycle counts by ABC code, movement class, item class or cycle, so the whole warehouse never has to stop.

At a glance

• Who it is for: Australian distributors, manufacturers and trade suppliers on MYOB Acumatica who close the warehouse for a full count every June, or who want to stop doing that.
• Problem it solves: Book quantities that drift from the shelf, a stocktake that halts shipping for a day, variances found at 30 June instead of in March, and an inventory subledger that will not agree with the general ledger at period close.
• Platforms: MYOB Acumatica (formerly MYOB Advanced) with the Inventory feature. Advanced Physical Counts on the Enable/Disable Features form (CS100000) for anything beyond a full count; Inventory Operations and Warehouse Management for scanning, including the MYOB Acumatica mobile app.
• Typical cost: No separately published price. Physical inventory is part of the Inventory module inside a MYOB Acumatica subscription, which MYOB licenses per named user and quotes through partners; our MYOB Acumatica cost guide sets out the indicative ranges.
• Typical timeline: Setting up the physical inventory types, ABC codes and tag numbering is usually half a day to a day inside an implementation. A full count of one warehouse is a one-day freeze for most of the distributors we work with; a cycle count by ABC code is an hour or two a week.
• Last verified: 3 November 2026 against the MYOB Acumatica help pages for Prepare Physical Count (IN504000), Physical Inventory Review (IN305000) and Types of Physical Inventory, and the ATO’s simpler trading stock rules page (QC44443, updated 27 May 2026).

The June stocktake is a ritual in most Australian warehouses: shut the doors, hand out clipboards, find out what the system got wrong over the last twelve months, then argue about the adjustment. MYOB Acumatica supports that full count, but it also carries the tools for not doing it that way. This guide walks through the physical inventory process end to end, the six ways the system can pick what to count, what the freeze actually stops, how scanning changes the day, and what the ATO expects at year end.

How does a stocktake work in MYOB Acumatica?

MYOB calls a stocktake a physical inventory, and the process overview runs through four screens. It helps to see the whole chain before touching any of them.

1. Prepare the count on IN504000. Pick a physical inventory type and a warehouse, optionally exclude locations or items, and click Generate PI. The system creates the physical inventory document, numbers every line and, if you use tags, every tag, and opens it on the review screen. A Blank Lines to Append setting adds empty rows at the bottom of the count sheet for stock that is found on the floor but not on the list.
2. Count. Print the count sheets or tags and count by hand, or scan on the Scan and Count screen (IN305020) or the mobile app. Book Qty on the sheet is on-hand quantity minus what is already on confirmed shipments, so stock sitting in a packed carton is not counted twice.
3. Enter the results. Finish Counting on IN305000 moves the document to Data Entering. Quantities go in on the Physical Inventory Count form (IN305010), through the Add Line dialog with a barcode scanner, or by Load Records from File from an Excel or CSV export of the count sheet.
4. Review and complete on IN305000. Lines still at Not Entered are set to zero or to Skipped, the Update Actual Cost action refreshes unit costs from the counted quantities, and Complete PI creates the inventory adjustment. Cancel PI throws the document away and posts nothing.

Every document carries a status: Counting in Progress, Data Entering, In Review (the adjustment exists and accountants are looking at it), Completed or Canceled. A document that still has Not Entered lines cannot be completed, which is the control that stops a half-finished count from adjusting stock.

Which physical inventory type should you use?

The physical inventory type on Physical Inventory Types (IN208900) decides which items land on the count sheet and in what order. With the Inventory feature alone you get one method, Full Physical Inventory. Switch on Advanced Physical Counts under CS100000 and five more appear. MYOB’s own guidance is that a full count “disrupts business processes and can be very costly”, and that counting by ABC code “usually works best”, because a small number of items carries most of the stock value.

Table: The six physical inventory generation methods in MYOB Acumatica, from the Types of Physical Inventory help page, as at 3 November 2026.

Three settings on the type do most of the work. Include Items with Zero Book Quantity decides whether a bin the system thinks is empty gets a line (available on every method except Full and By Inventory). Hide Book Qty on PI Count takes the expected quantity off the counting form, so the counter cannot write down what the system already says. And Unfreeze Stock When Counting Is Finished releases the items for warehouse operations as soon as the document reaches Data Entering, instead of holding them until Complete PI.

For counts by ABC code or movement class, MYOB’s configuration guidance adds a rule that trips people up: the count-per-year values for the different codes have to be factors of the largest one. Twelve for A, four for B and one for C works. Twelve, five and two does not, because a single By Frequency document can only pick up the codes whose frequency divides evenly into the schedule. The recommended sequence is one full count first, then frequency counts from there.

What does freezing stock actually stop?

Generating the document “freezes” the items on it. MYOB’s Prepare Physical Count page is precise about the scope: a full count with no locations selected freezes the whole warehouse, a count with specific locations freezes only those, and an advanced type freezes only the items it listed. No transactions for frozen items are released until the document is completed or cancelled, or, with the unfreeze setting, until counting is finished.

That scope rule is the whole case for cycle counting. A By Cycle document for one aisle freezes one aisle; the rest of the warehouse keeps picking and receiving. The same page carries a warning worth repeating to anyone who wants to unfreeze early: releasing items before the adjustment is released “may cause discrepancies in the quantity or cost of stock items”. Our practice is to leave the unfreeze setting off on the full count type and on for cycle counts, where the adjustment is small and reviewed the same day.

The freeze date is stamped on the document, and the book quantity is captured at that moment. If a receipt for a frozen item arrives mid-count, it waits. If your 3PL or your batch and lot tracking workflow depends on receiving the moment the truck lands, plan the count for a window with no inbound.

How do you count with a scanner or the mobile app?

With Inventory Operations enabled, the Scan and Count screen (IN305020) and the matching screen in the MYOB Acumatica mobile app replace the clipboard. The sequence is fixed: scan the physical inventory document number, scan the location barcode, scan the item barcode, which marks the line Entered at one unit, then scan or type the quantity after the *qty command if the shelf holds more than one. Scan the next item in the location, or the next location, and finish with *confirm, which saves the counts to IN305010.

Lot and serial tracked items add one step. After the item barcode the system prompts for the lot or serial number, and you scan each one in turn, which is the moment an expiry-dated line gets its date checked. MYOB’s mobile counting activity assumes four features are on: Multiple Warehouse Locations, Advanced Physical Count, Warehouse Management and Inventory Operations, and it notes the Android and iOS apps differ slightly. The precondition the documentation states plainly is that scanning assumes every stock item and every location is barcoded. If half your bins have no label, the scan-and-count day will be slower than the clipboard. Our barcode scanning and warehouse management post covers the labelling job and the other seven scanner operations.

There is a middle path without the warehouse features. The Add Line dialog on IN305000 accepts a barcode scanner on a desktop: tick Add One Unit Per Bar Code and each scan adds one to the line, with Auto Add Line creating a new row the first time a barcode is seen.

What happens to variances, costs and the GL when you complete the count?

The review screen calculates Variance Quantity as book minus physical on every line and totals the variance cost for the document. Two cost columns catch people out. Unit Cost on the review screen shows the item’s last cost as an approximation, whatever valuation method the item uses. When you run Update Actual Cost before completing, the help says the average cost is used for all items, no matter which valuation method is assigned, and the final unit cost is recalculated according to the valuation method once the adjustment is released. The Final Ext. Variance Cost column is the number that reaches the ledger.

Complete PI creates an inventory adjustment for every line with a difference, and the Adjustment Info tab links to it. The reason code on each line comes from Reason Codes (CS211000), and that is where the GL account for the write-off or write-on is set, so a count with “damaged”, “theft” and “data entry” reason codes posts to three accounts instead of one. Review the adjustment before release: the In Review status exists so that someone in finance can look at a $40,000 variance before it hits cost of sales.

A caution we give every client: do not fix a variance by journalling straight to the inventory GL account. The inventory subledger and the general ledger have to agree before the period can close, and a manual journal that bypasses the inventory module is the most common reason they do not. The count adjustment is the only clean way to change stock value. Our EOFY checklist covers the reconciliation and the period close that follow.

Do you still need a full stocktake at 30 June?

For tax purposes the ATO’s accounting for trading stock page says all businesses must account for the value of their trading stock at the end of each income year. The simpler trading stock rules (QC44443, updated 27 May 2026) let a small business with aggregated turnover under $10 million, extended to businesses under $50 million for income years from 1 July 2021, skip a formal stocktake if it estimates its trading stock value changed by $5,000 or less in the year. Anyone above that, which is nearly every MYOB Acumatica customer, uses the general rules: an increase in stock value is assessable income and a decrease is a deduction, so the 30 June figure has to be defensible.

A defensible figure does not have to come from a one-day shutdown. If the warehouse has been counted by ABC code all year, with A items counted monthly and the full count-per-year schedule logged on completed physical inventory documents, the 30 June balance is the book balance plus a short list of recent adjustments, each with a reason code and a reviewer. That is a stronger audit trail than one count sheet signed in a hurry. Businesses with a lot of C items and no cycle counting should still run the full count, and use the By Inventory random sample type a week later to check it.

The cut-off matters either way. The book quantity in the count is net of confirmed shipments, so a shipment confirmed on 30 June but invoiced on 1 July is already out of the count; make sure the invoice follows in the same period or the inventory-to-GL reconciliation will show the gap.

Five things we set up before the first count

• Tags with a high starting number. On Inventory Preferences (IN101000) the Use Tags option prints a tag per line; MYOB recommends a last tag number such as 1000 or 10000 so a tag number can never be mistaken for a book quantity on the sheet.
• Assignment order that matches the walk. The type’s Assignment Order tab sorts count lines by location, then item, so the sheet follows the aisles instead of the item list.
• ABC codes from the first year’s data. Codes can be assigned on import at go-live and recalculated from sales statistics later, which is when the frequency schedule starts earning its keep. The replenishment post uses the same classes for reorder points.
• Reason codes with their own GL accounts. Shrinkage, damage, found stock and data correction, each posting where finance wants it.
• A negative book quantity count on the calendar. The By Inventory method with Items Having Negative Book Qty is the cheapest stocktake in the system and the one that finds the receipts nobody keyed.

Where a count keeps finding the same variance on the same lines, that is a process problem, not a counting problem. The AI inventory exception agent we describe for MYOB Acumatica watches for exactly that pattern between counts, and the MYOB FastStart for wholesale distribution program includes the physical inventory configuration in its fixed scope.

“Nobody misses the June shutdown. The distributors who move to ABC cycle counts stop finding their big variances at year end, because they found them in March on a Tuesday morning with the warehouse still shipping.”

Bill Alvarez, Practice Manager, Auboros

Goes well with

• MYOB Acumatica barcode scanning and warehouse management: what is built in
• MYOB batch tracking: lot numbers, expiry dates and recall traces
• MYOB Acumatica EOFY checklist 2027: what to prepare before 30 June

Want the stocktake to stop closing the warehouse?

Auboros is a MYOB Acumatica partner in Brisbane working with distributors and manufacturers across Queensland and the rest of Australia, and physical inventory types, ABC codes and scan-and-count are part of every inventory implementation we scope. If you want to move from one full count a year to cycle counts that keep the doors open, book a free 1-hour scoping call. We will look at your item mix and tell you which count types fit before anything is configured.