Physical inventory count for QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online has no barcode scanning, and its Inventory Counts screen only accepts quantities typed in by hand. So the count happens on a scanner, and the numbers go back in as a file. Here is exactly how, what comes out, and what we don't do.
The gap
On Plus and Advanced, with inventory tracking turned on. Every item has a quantity, and your balance sheet depends on it being right.
Products & Services → More → Inventory Counts. You get a count sheet, you type a New Quantity against each item, and on Finalize it posts an inventory quantity adjustment.
None. Not in Simple Start, not in Plus, not in Advanced. Barcode scanning is a QuickBooks Desktop and Enterprise feature, and Intuit's own mobile scanner app only works with Enterprise.
The New Quantity column is typed. For two hundred items that's an afternoon. For two thousand across forty bins, with six people counting, it's a week and a stack of paper.
That's the whole problem. QuickBooks Online is perfectly good at holding the number. It gives you nothing to get the number, and the one screen it does give you assumes somebody already walked the racks with a clipboard.
How the count runs
Be clear about this
Intuit opened an API in 2025 that lets an app post an inventory quantity adjustment directly into QuickBooks Online. We have not built against it. When we do, this page will say so and will say when.
Until then the handover is a file, and we would rather tell you that on the page than in an email after you've paid. What you get is a clean CSV with the part number and the counted quantity, dated for the count, and help getting it into the layout your import tool wants.
If that sounds like a limitation, weigh it against the alternative, which is typing two thousand numbers into a web form on a Sunday.
What comes out
| Site Name | Bin Location | Part Number | Barcode | Part Description | Count | User Name | Date | Time | Withdrawn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warehouse 2 | C-02-01 | 0363-5556 | ="0363555664340" | Filter, oil, spin-on | 40 | Sam | 12/31/2026 | 10:42:15 | |
| Warehouse 2 | A-03-02 | 4402-118 | ="9312345678907" | Bearing, 6204-2RS | 24 | Maria | 12/31/2026 | 10:41:52 | |
| Warehouse 2 | A-03-02 | 4402-118 | ="9312345678907" | Bearing, 6204-2RS | 22 | Maria | 12/31/2026 | 10:39:10 | Y |
That last row is a withdrawn count — a recount replaced it. It leaves every total immediately but the record stays, so an auditor can see a figure was changed and by whom. QuickBooks Online's own count screen keeps nothing like it.
QuickBooks Online has no bins, so for the import the counts are summed per item. The bin detail stays in Stocktakes Online, which is where you want it anyway — it's what tells you a shelf was missed.
Enterprise
Enterprise with Advanced Inventory has sites and bins of its own, and a Cycle Count feature that goes out to Excel and back. That maps to how Stocktakes Online already thinks — site, bin, part, count — so nothing has to be summed away.
Our export carries Site Name and Bin Location as separate columns, which is what an Enterprise import needs. Tell us you're on Enterprise and we'll work through the layout with you.
Intuit also ships a scanner app for Enterprise that does cycle counts on a Zebra TC21 or TC26. If you are on Enterprise Platinum or Diamond and it suits you, use it — it's included in what you already pay. Stocktakes Online is for everyone else, and for anyone who wants the count to run on the scanners they already own.
Questions
No, and not with any product — QuickBooks Online has no barcode scanning at all. Anything that claims otherwise is scanning into its own system first and then sending the numbers across, which is what we do too. We'd rather say so plainly.
Plus or Advanced, with inventory tracking turned on. Simple Start and Essentials don't track quantity on hand, so there's nothing to count against. Enterprise works too — see above.
As a file. You export from Stocktakes Online, then import through whatever spreadsheet import tool you use with QuickBooks. We don't post it for you, and we don't pretend to.
QuickBooks Online doesn't have them. Load them into Stocktakes Online anyway — the counts get summed per item for the import, and the bin detail stays in the reports, where it tells you which shelves nobody visited. That's the report that ends a count.
Not if you have Zebra Android scanners on Android 5.1 or newer. Tell us the model number and we'll tell you whether we've run it — and if we haven't, we'll say so. If you don't have any, Zebra's own reseller locator will find you one, and we'll spec the right model first at no charge.
They will — that's the entire point of counting. Stocktakes Online shows you what was counted, by whom, in which bin, and which items and bins nobody scanned at all. Reconcile before you import, not after.
Per count, not per year. From US$95 for a count, with no subscription. Most businesses doing a year-end count pay once a year. Full pricing.
Most American businesses count in the last week of December, for a December 31 close. Load your items and test your scanners in November — not on the day. The single most common reason a count night goes badly is a scanner nobody checked.
Contact
Tell us the date, how many scanners, and which QuickBooks you're on. You'll get a set-up call the week before. Counting at year-end? Book by mid-December.