Physical Inventory Process

Physical Inventory Steps

The following is an overview of the steps you should follow to perform a physical inventory using Surpass Cloud.

1. Reset any prior physical inventory using Resources : Inventory : Reset. When you use Surpass Cloud to inventory your resources, including when they are set to be inventoried automatically on add or check-in (see Settings : Resources : General, Surpass Cloud tags each item as having been counted in inventory. Reset removes all of those inventory tags so you can start fresh.

2. Take Inventory by scanning the barcode of every resource in your collection (or a sub-set based on call number or category). You can do this using a portable data collector or using a barcode reader connected to an easily moved device. This is done using Resources : Inventory : Take Inventory.

3. Review the Missing Items Report, which you can find at Resources : Inventory : Missing Items, to see which resources were not inventoried and might be missing. See if you can locate any of the missing items and, if you do, go back to Take Inventory of those. Repeat this until you are confident that you have inventoried everything possible. When you are finished, you might want to print and/or download this report for your records.

4. Declare missing items to be lost. This is an optional step that you can perform in Resources : Inventory : Missing Items. It changes the status of any resources not inventoried to Lost so they no longer appear in the Public Catalog.

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Inventory Overview

Data Collection Methods

You can type barcode numbers into Resources : Inventory : Take Inventory, but you probably don't want to do that for thousands of resources! The best way to take inventory is with a barcode scanner and there are a few options there (in ascending order of convenience):

Barcode Scanner at Circulation Desk

Since you probably already have a barcode scanner at your circulation desk, you can certainly use that to take inventory. It's not a very convenient way, though. If the computer doesn't move, that means the resources will have to be brought to it.

Laptop Computer with Barcode Scanner

You could attach a barcode scanner (perhaps borrowed from your circulation desk) to a laptop computer and carry (or cart) it around the library to inventory resources. It's definitely an improvement over hauling everything to the circulation desk, but it's still rather cumbersome.

Portable Data Collector

You can use a portable data collector-type scanner, which is basically a battery operated barcode scanner that saves scanned barcodes to memory. The scanner can be taken to wherever your resources are, no matter how far away. Once back at a computer, you connect the scanner to your computer and download the scanned barcodes to a file. You then use the Upload feature in Resources : Inventory : Take Inventory to upload the file and process the barcodes. One disadvantage to this is that you do not get real-time feedback as you are scanning to let you know that an item is out of order, not found, etc.

Portable Device with Barcode Scanner

For portability and real-time feedback, the best choice is to use a portable device such as a mobile phone or tablet, paired with a Bluetooth scanner. This allows you to use the Resources : Inventory : Take Inventory feature wherever you have an internet connection. Because you're on the Take Inventory page, you'll get instant feedback to let you know what you have scanned and whether there is anything that needs your attention, such as it being out of call number order or letting you know that you have found a resource that was previously thought lost.

Doing a Partial Inventory

You can either do a full inventory of your entire collection, or just a partial inventory of a particular call number range or category. Since the final product of a physical inventory process is the Missing Items Report (and optionally declaring missing items as lost), the key to performing a partial inventory of your library is to limit this report to a particular call number range and/or a particular category.

For example, let's say you want to inventory only the books in your library (no equipment, video, software, magazines, etc.). To do this, you would select only those categories that are books when viewing the Missing Items Report. The report would exclude all non-book resources. Or, you might want to perform inventory on just a single shelf. Just limit the Missing Items Report to the call number range of the shelf you are checking!

At the bottom of the Missing Items Report on-screen preview, you can select to Declare Lost the resources that appear on the list. Other un-inventoried items will not be affected.