COUNTBENCH GUIDE
Imports and exports.
CountBench reads a catalogue or expected-stock file from your own system and gives you results in formats that system, or a spreadsheet, can use. Nothing is silently dropped or merged on the way in, and every export says exactly which revision of the count it came from.
What you can import
Import UTF-8 CSV files, with or without a byte-order mark, using comma, semicolon or tab separators. CountBench detects the separator and asks you to confirm it. Quoted fields, escaped quotes and line breaks inside quotes are handled properly. XLSX import is not supported: save the sheet as CSV first.
- A catalogue: a unique item code for each item, with an optional barcode, description and unit. A scan can match either the barcode or the item code.
- An expected-stock snapshot: location, item code and expected quantity, with an optional barcode, description and unit. You confirm the time the snapshot was taken.
The preview shows representative rows and any errors, lets you map your own column names and lists extra columns that will be left out. Duplicate or empty headers, malformed rows, repeated location and item rows and unsupported encodings are errors to fix, not rows to skip or add together. An import is accepted whole or not at all.
Leading zeroes, units and lots
Codes are always kept as text, so 000017 stays 000017. Quantities must be whole numbers. If your file includes lot, serial or pack distinctions, CountBench warns you, because combining them could merge different stock under one code. Give distinct stock its own item code rather than relying on a column that is left out.
Technical limits
To keep the browser reliable, imports are limited to 5 MiB per CSV, 10,000 catalogue items and 10,000 expected rows per snapshot, five snapshots and 500 locations per count. A count can hold up to 20,000 counted entries, and project backups can be up to 25 MiB. The limits are shown before you import and are the same for everyone.
What each download contains
- Results CSV, for stock systems: one row per location, item and unit, with counted, expected and variance columns, count state and scope. Empty values stay empty, never zero. It is a raw interchange file: open it in a spreadsheet only with care, because spreadsheets may change codes and formulas.
- Exceptions CSV: unresolved scans and their status, kept separate from the counted quantities.
- Results XLSX, for spreadsheets: Results, Exceptions and Summary sheets, with codes stored as text, quantities as numbers and no formulas, macros or links. Values such as
=1+1or long numeric codes stay as plain text. - Project backup: the complete count, including every observation and correction, to restore later or on another device. It contains your operational data, so store it accordingly.
- PDF report and count tickets: see printing count reports and tickets.
File names identify CountBench, the format and the date, with no site, item or person in them. While a blind comparison is unrevealed, CSV and XLSX results leave out expected quantities and variances and state that they are withheld.
Using results in your stock system
Results describe what was physically counted, at a recorded time. They are not approved stock adjustments. Import them into your own system, review the differences there and decide what to change.
