Scan-Based Inventory Tracking: The Only Reliable Way to Know What You Have

If inventory accuracy feels like a coin toss, it is usually because your process is asking people to remember things instead of asking the system to record them. Scan-based inventory tracking is the practical fix. It turns warehouse work into a chain of confirmed transactions, so your inventory numbers match reality more often than they miss it.

Most brands do not start out planning to obsess over scanning. They start out trying to sell products, ship quickly, and keep customers happy. Scanning becomes urgent after a few painful lessons: overselling a hero SKU during a promotion, shipping the wrong item to a high-value customer, or missing a retailer deadline because inventory was not where anyone thought it was. When those failures repeat, scan-based tracking stops being a feature request and becomes a requirement.

Why scanning is the foundation of real time inventory tracking

Inventory is not static. It is constantly moving. It arrives at a dock, gets staged, gets palletized, gets put away, gets replenished, gets picked, gets packed, and sometimes comes back as a return. If your system only records some of those steps, your inventory picture will always be incomplete.

Bryan Wright, CTO and COO of G10 Fulfillment, described the standard that separates good systems from bad ones: "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." That sentence is the essence of scan-based inventory tracking. Every touch is a chance for inventory to drift. Every scan is a chance to keep it honest.

When scans happen at each step, inventory stays visible even while it is in motion. Bryan gave a simple, vivid example of what that means operationally: "At any point in time, I know that Bobby has this product on fork 10 right now, and if I needed to go find that product, I just got to go find Bobby on fork 10." That is not just transparency. That is control.

Paper breaks accuracy because it creates invisible work

Some warehouses still rely on paper for parts of receiving, putaway, or picking. It feels faster in the moment, especially during peak. It is also how inventory disappears. Paper work does not create a transaction record. Without a transaction record, the system can only guess, and guesses are expensive.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10 Fulfillment, put the operational rule in plain language: "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." He also explained why it matters financially. When accuracy is weak, brands end up "losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." That is the hidden cost of invisible work.

Scan-based tracking reduces oversells and customer service chaos

Oversells are not just a storefront problem. They are a data problem. Your store is only as accurate as the inventory feed it receives. If the warehouse system is delayed, incomplete, or wrong, your store will happily sell inventory you do not have. Then you refund, apologize, and hope the customer gives you another chance.

Scan-based tracking reduces oversells because it narrows the gap between physical inventory and system inventory. When receiving and internal moves are scanned, product does not sit in a gray zone where it exists physically but not digitally. When picks and packs are scanned, inventory decrements are immediate and accurate, which keeps availability aligned across channels.

That accuracy also reduces support tickets. Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10 Fulfillment, described why visibility matters to customers: "What these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." When customers can see inventory and order status without waiting on an email thread, they stop interrupting the warehouse, and the warehouse can focus on executing correctly.

Picking and packing: where scanning saves your reputation

Pick errors are not just mistakes. They are brand damage. A wrong item shipped can erase months of goodwill, and it can trigger negative reviews that depress conversion rates. Scan verification at pick and pack is one of the simplest ways to reduce those errors.

In scan-based workflows, the picker scans the location, scans the item, and the system validates that the correct SKU is being picked. At pack, scanning verifies that the items in the carton match the order. That double confirmation catches many errors before they leave the building.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10 Fulfillment, described what strong execution looks like at scale: "We have over 99.9% ship accuracy of these orders." Metrics like that are not luck. They come from processes that make it hard to do the wrong thing, and easy to do the right thing.

Receiving and putaway: the hidden battleground for accuracy

Most inventory drift starts before picking even begins. If receiving is rushed, if labeling is inconsistent, or if putaway happens without scans, you create errors that only show up later as stockouts and mispicks. Scan-based inventory tracking fixes this by treating receiving and putaway as first-class, transaction-level steps.

Bryan described how a strong system tracks inventory before it reaches a final bin. In a good system, the dock is a location, the pallet is tracked, and even a forklift move is visible as inventory travels. That is why the "fork 10" example matters. It shows that inventory can remain visible while it moves, which is exactly when many systems go blind.

Cycle counting becomes faster and more useful with scans

Cycle counting is not glamorous, but it is how you keep your inventory ledger honest. Scan-based tracking makes cycle counting faster because locations and quantities are already structured around verified transactions. It also makes cycle counting more useful because the transaction history helps explain variances.

If you find a variance, scan history can tell you where to look. Did the issue begin at receiving. Was there an unscanned transfer. Did replenishment move product to a different location than expected. Without scans, you are guessing. With scans, you can diagnose and improve.

Omnichannel fulfillment demands scan discipline

When you sell D2C and B2B from the same inventory pool, scan discipline matters even more. One channel can drain inventory the other channel is expecting. That is why inventory updates must be fast, accurate, and visible.

Jen Myers, Chief Marketing Officer at G10 Fulfillment, explained the practical need during channel expansion: "You want to make sure your inventory is tracked across those two different systems, to make sure that there's enough inventory." Scan-based tracking supports that goal by keeping the warehouse side accurate, which keeps channel allocation and availability more reliable.

How G10 approaches scan-based inventory tracking

G10 treats scan-based execution as the baseline, not the upgrade. Connor set the expectation clearly: "Having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." Bryan defined the technical foundation that makes those scans meaningful: "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." Maureen connected the operational truth to customer confidence: "What these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility."

If you want to stop arguing with your inventory numbers and start using them to run the business, scan-based inventory tracking is where you begin. It replaces memory with confirmation. It replaces guesswork with an audit trail. It turns accuracy into a repeatable habit, which is what you need if you want to scale without the constant fear that the system is lying to you.