Reconciling physical inventory means comparing what’s counted on your warehouse floor with what your system of record says you have — then identifying and correcting any mismatches. The goal is to ensure your physical stock aligns with digital records across your ERP, WMS, or e-commerce systems.
Most operators still rely on manual spreadsheets or CSV uploads from multiple systems, which increases the chance of error. During peak season, these mismatches can cost hours in detective work and delay closing the books.
How to Reconcile Physical Inventory Effectively
Follow these steps to make reconciliation faster and more accurate:
- Pull data from all relevant systems — your ERP, WMS, and sales platforms.
- Import physical counts from your scanners, spreadsheets, or count sheets.
- Join and compare both datasets, SKU by SKU.
- Flag discrepancies in quantity, location, or cost.
- Adjust and re-upload corrected values to your system of record.
- Automate the cadence (e.g., nightly or weekly) so data stays aligned over time.
This process ensures every physical audit produces clean, reliable data for both operations and finance.
How It’s Done With Parabola
With Parabola, operators can automate this entire workflow — no code required.
You can:
- Connect to NetSuite, Shopify, or your WMS directly.
- Import physical counts from scanners or Google Sheets.
- Compare records with “Join” and “Compare Columns” steps.
- Flag mismatched SKUs automatically.
- Output reconciled data back to your ERP or dashboard.
Parabola runs this process on a schedule, so your stock levels are always synced — without endless CSV juggling.
Automate your inventory reconciliation process using our free template.