Physical stock count and shrinkage tracker for Clover

Count your shelves one category at a time, watch the dollar value of every discrepancy add up as you go, and keep the audit trail Clover never gave you.

App
CloverGoogle SheetsOperationsFinanceData SyncResearch & Monitoring
PromptCreate

Build me an app my retail staff open to run physical stock counts against my Clover inventory and see exactly where we are losing product. Clover has no structured physical count, no discrepancy reporting, and no record of who changed a quantity or why, so this app is both the counting surface and the audit trail.

The main view is a count sheet. At the top I pick a category, loaded with Clover's List Categories. Picking one loads every item in that category using List Inventory Items, and pulls each item's current tracked quantity using List All Item Stock. Render one row per item showing the item name, its price, and the current system quantity, plus a blank input where whoever is counting types the quantity actually on the shelf. Handle categories with more items than one page returns, and if an item has no tracked stock in Clover, show it in the row as untracked, exclude it from the shrinkage math, and never write to it.

As counts get typed in, each row shows its variance live: counted quantity minus system quantity in units, and the same number multiplied by the item price in dollars. Clover returns monetary amounts as integers in cents, so divide by 100 for every dollar figure shown or logged. A negative variance means product is missing. Above the sheet, keep a running session total showing counted rows out of total rows, net variance in units, and total shrinkage in dollars, so I can see a $340 hole before I finish counting.

Let me set a variance threshold for the session, expressed either as units or as dollars. Any row whose variance exceeds it gets visibly flagged as needing a recount, and the header shows how many flagged rows are outstanding. I should be able to clear a flag by recounting the row and confirming the number, and I want a warning if I try to commit while flagged rows are unresolved, though I can override it.

Counts must be resumable. Persist the in-progress count session, including every entered quantity, the chosen category, the threshold, the counter's name, and any reason notes, so a staff member can stop mid-aisle and come back later, or hand off to someone else, with nothing lost. Show any open sessions when the app opens so they can be picked back up. Support counting one category at a time rather than forcing the whole store in one sitting.

Never write anything back to Clover until I explicitly commit. Commit is a separate, deliberate action with a confirmation summarizing how many items will change and the total dollar impact. On commit, for every row where the counted quantity differs from the system quantity, call Update Item Stock to set the corrected quantity, re-reading with Get Item Stock first so a stale system quantity is caught if the item moved since the sheet was loaded. Then append one row per adjustment to a Google Sheets audit log using Append Values, with the timestamp, category, item name, item id, old quantity, new quantity, variance in units, variance in dollars, the counter's name, and an optional reason note. Reason is picked from breakage, theft, miscount, supplier short-ship, expired, or other, with a free-text field. If the log sheet is empty, write the header row first with Update Values. Show a clear per-row result after commit so a partial failure is visible and retryable rather than silent.

A second view is count history. It reads the audit log back out of the same Google Sheet with Get Values and turns it into something I can actually study: adjustments grouped by item so I can see which products keep coming up short month over month, total dollars lost by category, and a breakdown by staff member showing who ran each count and what it turned up. Let me filter by date range, category, staff member, and reason. Surface repeat offenders, meaning items that have come up short across multiple separate counts, since those are where real shrinkage hides.

Keep the interface fast to use on a phone or tablet while standing at a shelf, with large input targets and easy movement from one row to the next. The counter's name should be captured once at the start of a session and carried onto every logged row.

What does this prompt do?

  • Turns any category of your Clover inventory into a printable-style count sheet, with each item's current tracked quantity already filled in and a blank box for what is actually on the shelf.
  • Shows the gap between the system count and the real count live, in both units and dollars, and keeps a running shrinkage total for the session so you can see a $340 hole before you finish counting.
  • Flags any item whose discrepancy is bigger than the threshold you set, so your team can recount it before anything is saved.
  • Writes the corrected quantities back to Clover only when you press commit, and logs every single adjustment to a spreadsheet with the time, the item, the old and new counts, the dollar impact, who counted it, and why.
  • Keeps a running count history you can look back through to spot the items that come up short month after month and see which staff member ran each count.

What do I need to use this?

  • A Clover account with inventory items and stock tracking turned on for the items you want to count.
  • Permission to view and update inventory in Clover, since the app corrects quantities when you commit.
  • A Google account and a Google Sheet to hold the audit log and count history. A blank sheet is fine, the app sets up the column headers on first use.
  • The names of the people who will be running counts, so each adjustment can be attributed to whoever did the counting.

How can I customize it?

  • Set the flag threshold that decides when a discrepancy is big enough to force a recount, either as a number of units or a dollar amount.
  • Change the reason codes staff can pick from when they explain a discrepancy, for example breakage, theft, miscount, supplier short-ship, or expired.
  • Choose which categories are in scope for a count cycle, so seasonal or consignment sections can be skipped.
  • Adjust what the count history view groups by, such as worst items by dollars lost, by category, or by the staff member who ran the count.

FAQs

Will this change my Clover inventory while someone is still counting?
No. Nothing is sent to Clover until someone presses commit on a finished count. Until then everything lives in the app as a draft, so a half-finished count sheet can never corrupt your live inventory.
Can a staff member stop halfway and come back later?
Yes. Partly entered counts are saved as you type, so someone can count the back wall before lunch, close the app, and pick the same sheet back up afterwards with every number still there.
Do I have to count the whole store in one go?
No, that is the point of counting by category. You pick one category at a time, so you can do beverages on Tuesday and apparel on Thursday without losing your place or double counting.
Why does this use a spreadsheet as well as Clover?
Clover keeps no record of who changed a count, when, or why. The spreadsheet is the audit trail that fills that gap, and it is also what powers the count history view so you can compare this month against last.
How is the dollar value of a discrepancy worked out?
The app multiplies the missing or extra units by that item's own price in Clover, then adds every row up into one shrinkage figure for the session.
What happens to items that are not set up for stock tracking in Clover?
They show up in the sheet marked as untracked so nobody wastes time counting them, and they are left out of the shrinkage total and the write back.

Related templates

Prospecting desk that builds account lists from the live web

Stop buying stale lists. Reps run a saved search, work the results like an inbox, and only the accounts they approve ever reach your CRM.

Hyperbrowser
HubSpot
Google Sheets
App
Influencer campaign roster board with AI creator briefs

Drag creators through Sourced to Wrapped on a board grouped by campaign, with audience stats on every card and a one-click brief for each creator.

HypeAuditor
Google Sheets
Notion
App
Morning repricing console for Shopify with margin-safe rules

Pick a repricing rule, send an assistant out to check competitor pages, then approve the new prices that clear your margin floor.

Hyperbrowser
Shopify
Google Sheets
App
Pre-flight bounce check before you launch a cold email sequence

See the projected bounce rate for any outbound send before it goes out, and keep the launch button locked until the list is clean enough to be safe.

Hunter
Google Sheets
App
Per-device electricity cost explorer for your smart home

Pick any date range and see what each device in your home actually cost to run, not just how many kilowatt-hours it used.

Home Assistant
Google Sheets
App
Build a PR media list from real worldwide news coverage

Search three months of global coverage on your topic, rank the outlets actually writing about it, and draft a tailored pitch for each one.

GDELT
Google Sheets
Gmail
App

See exactly where your stock is going.

Give your team a proper count sheet, a live shrinkage number, and a record of every adjustment that Clover does not keep for you.