Year-end stocktake: your first one without Stocky

What your old Stocky year-end count gave you

It is worth naming what you're replacing, because "do a stocktake" undersells it. A Stocky year-end count handed you four things: the expected quantity against the counted quantity for every product; the variance, shortages and surpluses both; the missed items, the products nobody counted at all; and a value for the difference, at cost, which is the number that lands in the books. Whatever runs this year's count has to produce all four, or your accountant gets a spreadsheet and a shrug. (How counts work in the tools that replaced Stocky is covered in stocktakes after Stocky.)

Before you count: export your Stocky stocktake history

Your past counts are the baseline this year's variance gets compared against, and they only exist in Stocky. Shopify guarantees read-only export access through at least November 29, 2026, and has announced no end date; treat the guarantee as the deadline and export before it (the countdown page tracks what's known). Our export guide walks the full pull. One less obvious reason to do it properly: a stocktake export can be imported again. In Sutler, Stocky stocktakes arrive as approved past counts, so this December's count is compared against real history instead of starting from zero.

Freeze, count, recount the big gaps

• Freeze movement, or log it. Count when nothing is moving. If you can't close, write down every sale, return and delivery that happens while the count runs, and reconcile those lines separately.
• Count what's physically there. Draft orders and reserved stock are claims on inventory, not inventory. The shelf count is the truth the books get adjusted to.
• Recount the big gaps before adjusting anything. A variance of forty on a line is a miscount until a second pair of eyes says otherwise. Recount first; adjust second.
• Mark the missed items. A product nobody counted is not a product with zero variance. It goes on the report as uncounted.

The variance report your accountant actually wants

• Shortages and surpluses listed separately. Never netted against each other: a shortage is a loss, a surplus is a receiving or recording error, and they are different conversations.
• Every variance valued at cost, so the total adjustment is a money figure, not a unit count.
• A reason recorded per line where you have one: damaged, expired, received wrong, sold unrecorded, unknown. "Unknown" is an acceptable reason. A blank is not.
• The count date, and who counted, at the top. It reads like pedantry until the day it is evidence.

Cycle counts, so next December isn't a rescue

The year-end excavation is a habit, not a law. Split the catalog by value and movement: your A lines (the sellers and the expensive items) counted weekly, B lines monthly, C lines quarterly. The counts are small enough to do on a quiet morning, errors surface while they're still explainable, and December becomes a confirmation of numbers you already believe instead of the annual discovery of everything that went wrong since last December.

Running the count in Sutler

Sutler's stocktakes sit on the same record as your purchasing: expected quantities come from the system that holds your purchase orders and receiving, the count is reviewed before it is applied, and the result lands as a shrink summary your accountant can read. Your exported Stocky counts import as the approved history underneath it, so the first count you run already has a baseline. That is the whole pitch: the count, the orders and the history in one place, instead of three exports and a memory.

Get early access →

Quick answers

Can I still export my Stocky stocktake history?

Yes, while read-only access lasts. Shopify guarantees it through at least November 29, 2026 and has announced no end date. Export before then; after that, plan as if it is gone.

What belongs in a year-end stocktake report?

Expected against counted for every product, shortages and surpluses listed separately and valued at cost, the items that were never counted, and a reason recorded for each variance.

How often should I cycle count?

Count your A lines weekly, B lines monthly and C lines quarterly. Rolling counts keep the year-end stocktake small, instead of turning it into an annual rescue.

Check your Stocky export first: two minutes, nothing uploads.

The free Stocky Export Checker reads your Stocky CSV files in your browser and tells you what is inside them: purchase orders, products, suppliers named on your orders, open orders still to arrive, and what is missing. It also builds a list of the suppliers you'll need to re-enter, because Stocky can't export them.

Check my export →

What Sutler doesn't do

What Sutler does and doesn't do: Sutler suggests what to reorder from your sales, lead times and minimums, with the math shown, but makes no promise about forecast accuracy, and it does not do transfers between locations. What it does is the purchasing desk: purchase orders, receiving, labels, stocktakes and landed cost, and it imports your Stocky export into working purchase orders.