Variance Investigation Log
One row per variance that survived an independent recount. Fill in the value column first, sort it descending, and draw a line where the cumulative value stops moving — below the line, post as counted and stop.
Company / site: _______________________
Count date: ______________________
Period covered: ______________________
Zone / area: _______________________
Page: ______ of ______
Date printed: ______________________
| # |
Item / SKU |
Location or bin |
Counted qty |
System qty |
Variance (units) |
Unit cost |
Variance VALUEunits x unit cost — sort this column descending |
Recounted bymust differ from the original counter |
Cause — tick in this order |
What we foundwrite UNKNOWN if unknown |
Adjustment posted Y/N + date |
Investigated by / Approved by |
Loss is the LAST box, not the first. Ticking it without the first three checked is a guess. Paperwork movement missing or duplicated, then a real movement never recorded, then the item found somewhere else — only what survives all three is loss.
Write UNKNOWN if unknown. A sheet with no unknowns is a sheet with invented explanations. One unexplained variance is noise; the same item unexplained three counts running is a process problem — but only if somebody wrote it down each time.
Pulling the history for the first cause: export the movement history for the period, then filter to your item in the spreadsheet. The export is not paged and carries the date range and search text you set on screen — but it covers the whole organization, not the one item you are investigating, so the spreadsheet step is not optional.
Counted by: ____________________________ Date: ___________
Recounted by: ____________________________ Date: ___________
Investigated by: ____________________________ Date: ___________
Adjustments approved by: ____________________________ Date: ___________
Why the initials columns are on paper. A stock movement record has ten columns and none of them is a person — no user id, no initials, nothing. A name typed into a free-text reason is a sentence somebody wrote, not a verified identity. So accountability for a posted adjustment lives here, on the sheet, and nowhere else. Keep the sheets.