Cycle counting replaces (or supplements) the once-a-year physical inventory with small, frequent counts. Each week or month you count a slice of your assets — a few rooms, one category, the highest-value items — so that across a quarter or a year everything has been verified at least once, and important items more often.
Why cycle count?
- Less disruption — no need to close a site for a day.
- Earlier detection — a missing asset is noticed within weeks, while the trail is still warm.
- Better root-cause fixing — small counts make it easier to see which process caused an error.
- Steadier workload — the audit team is not overwhelmed at year-end.
Ways to choose what to count
| Method | How it works | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| By location | Count a set of rooms or areas each cycle | Offices, buildings, stores — also catches unregistered items |
| By category | Count one asset class each cycle | IT, AV, tools |
| ABC (by value/risk) | Count A items most often, C items least | Mixed registers with a few high-value items |
| Random sample | Count a random selection | Testing overall register reliability |
| Triggered | Count after an event — move, incident, zero stock | Following up exceptions |
ABC cycle counting — a worked example
The class split and frequencies are choices, not rules — set them from your own values, loss history and regulatory needs.
Running a good cycle count program
- Define classes and frequencies, and publish a calendar.
- Count by location where possible so unregistered items surface too.
- Reconcile each count immediately and investigate differences before the next cycle.
- Track accuracy by cycle — existence rate and location accuracy — and watch the trend.
- Adjust frequencies: areas with repeated errors get counted more often.
Cycle counts with RFID
Because a handheld UHF RFID reader can count a room in the time it takes to walk it, RFID makes frequent location-based cycle counts practical even in dense areas. With QR or barcode, keeping each cycle small is what makes the program sustainable.
How Asetavo supports cycle counts
In Asetavo each cycle is an audit scoped by location, floor or category, counted with phone scans or bulk RFID reads, and reconciled into found, missing and unregistered. Audits can be scheduled to recur, so the calendar runs itself and each cycle's variance report is kept for comparison.