Recount Trigger & Escalation Workflow

The problem this kills

A cycle counter writes down 47 when the system says 52. What happens next? In most warehouses: nothing good. Either the variance gets quietly posted as an adjustment (and now your "accurate" inventory is built on one tired person's tally at 4pm), or it sits in a spreadsheet that nobody recounts, or it bounces around in email until everyone forgets which number was real.

The fix everyone says they have is a recount policy: "if a count is off by more than X, count it again, and if it's still off, a supervisor signs off before we adjust." The fix nobody actually enforces is that same policy, because enforcing it by hand is tedious and easy to skip. So adjustments slip through on a single count, big dollar variances get rubber-stamped, and your stock accuracy slowly rots.

This tool makes the policy the only path. A count that's over threshold cannot become an adjustment until it's been recounted and a human has approved the final number.

What you'll build

A small, login-protected web app for your inventory team that:

• Takes in your count results (from a Google Sheet or CSV to start - no integration needed).
• Calculates the variance in units and in dollars for every line.
• Automatically opens a recount task for any line over your threshold - configurable rounds, so you can require a second and even a third count.
• Escalates a line that's still off after the last recount to a supervisor by email.
• Holds a hard approval gate: a supervisor reviews the recount history and approves the final number. Nothing posts without it.
• Exports a clean adjustment CSV in the exact columns your ERP or WMS expects - only for the lines that cleared the gate.
• Keeps a full audit trail of every count, every round, and every decision.

What's inside the Implementation Plan

A single markdown file you paste into Claude Code (a free AI coding assistant). It walks the AI through building the whole tool, step by step, with a ready-to-copy prompt at the end of every step.

Crucially, the plan opens by interviewing you about your business - your count process, your systems, how your SKUs and locations are named, your typical and peak count volumes, your exact threshold and escalation rules, and your messy edge cases (negative on-hand, new SKUs, multi-location bins). It reads a short tailored spec back to you and waits for your thumbs-up before it builds anything. You get a tool shaped around how your warehouse counts - not a generic template you have to bend to fit.

Inside you'll find: the discovery interview, the data model, the variance + threshold engine, the recount-round logic, the escalation ladder, the supervisor approval screen, the audit trail, and the CSV import/export fallback so it works today with zero API hookups.

The governance it includes (this is the point)

This isn't a spreadsheet macro. It's built with real controls, because controlling who can change your inventory numbers is the whole job:

• Login so only your team can use it.
• Row-level security so each organization only ever sees its own counts.
• A complete audit trail - who counted what, when, every recount round, and who approved the final number.
• A hard human-in-the-loop gate - the tool drafts the adjustment, a supervisor reviews and approves, and only then does the number become exportable. A single count can never post an over-threshold adjustment on its own.
• Duplicate guards so the same SKU/location for the same count cycle can't be processed twice.

Who it's for

Cycle count leads, inventory control analysts, and warehouse supervisors who own stock accuracy and are tired of variances getting adjusted on a single count - or never recounted at all. If you can fill in a spreadsheet, you can build this.

You've got this - paste the first prompt and let the interview tailor it to your warehouse.