Warehouse Audit Accuracy: The Verification Step That Keeps Fulfillment Honest

Accuracy problems begin long before the audit reveals them

Warehouse audit accuracy is one of the most important indicators of operational health. Research shows that brands increasingly rely on audit data to validate the truth of their inventory, their processes, and their fulfillment performance. When audit accuracy suffers, everything built on top of it becomes questionable: counts drift, orders fail, replenishment breaks, and forecasting collapses.

Many brands who move to G10 describe the same frustrations with previous 3PLs: cycle counts that never matched system inventory, manual recounts that introduced new errors, and audits that surfaced problems far too late to protect customer experience. These issues do not begin with the audit. They begin with the daily workflows that produce the data the audit is meant to confirm.

As Maureen Milligan said, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements. So we've seen a lot of people come disillusioned by their last 3PL, where their orders weren't getting fulfilled in time, their inventory accuracy was not there, and they were not able to satisfy customer orders." Warehouse audit accuracy strengthens every area where those 3PLs fell short.

Audit accuracy depends on real time operational tracking

A warehouse audit is only as accurate as the system of record behind it. Real time tracking ensures that every inbound, transfer, pick, pack, and shipment is logged the moment it happens. Without that immediacy, audits measure an outdated version of reality instead of the truth.

Bryan Wright described the depth of operational visibility required when he said, "Absolutely. We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock. At 8:10, John picked it up and took it to location XYZ, and at 10 o'clock, we picked two items off of that pellet in the location 1, 2, 3, 4, order, you know, ABC, and at 11 o'clock, we packed it, we put it in this box and put this label number on it, and all the way through the process onto the truck and to the customer." Audit accuracy requires this kind of event history.

With real time tracking, audits become confirmation instead of correction.

Scan-based workflows are the backbone of audit accuracy

Audit accuracy collapses when inventory moves without scanning. A single skipped action can ripple into systemic discrepancies. Effective warehouse audits depend on capturing every movement consistently.

As Connor Perkins said, "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper. You can lose a lot of money in this industry by you know having people ship stuff wrong, or store it wrong, and now it's lost somewhere. So having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." This scanning discipline keeps audit results aligned with reality.

Connor also said, "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." Audit accuracy often exposes exactly these operational weaknesses.

Visibility portals reinforce audit accuracy through transparency

Audit accuracy improves when customers have access to the same data the warehouse uses. Transparency forces operational accountability and eliminates the possibility of hidden discrepancies.

As Maureen said, "We're in the last stages of developing a new portal that will give customers real-time visibility to their on-time order fulfillment, inventory accuracy, and even inventory levels so that they can monitor those things directly in our systems. They'll have visibility to what the statuses of their orders-are they getting processed as they expect?-and things like that." Audit accuracy benefits directly from this kind of visibility.

She added, "A lot of the 3PL customer expectations are that order fulfillment is happening extremely timely, that our inventory is accurate, that we're able to execute on their orders very quickly, and get them shipped the same day. So what these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." Audit accuracy turns that visibility into verification.

Connor reinforced the role of strong reporting when he said, "Our clients get best-in-class visibility and transparency. They can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions. They can look at a daily level or go into the more granular version where they're looking at transactional history on an item." Accurate audits require this level of reporting depth.

He also said, "You have easy access to reporting and you can export to Excel, or really any format that you like you know directly from our WMS portal." That accessibility makes audit validation fast and reliable.

Early detection prevents audit discrepancies from becoming systemic failures

Audit discrepancies rarely begin as large gaps. They start as minor exceptions: a missed inbound count, a misplaced SKU, a mis-slotted pallet, or a pick recorded incorrectly. Without real time visibility and reporting, those early signals go unnoticed until the audit reveals a much bigger problem.

With real time analytics and dashboards, teams can identify and correct discrepancies early, protecting inventory integrity and fulfillment reliability.

As Maureen said, "We will take in your inbounds, we will get them received and reported back to you within our SLAs, and oftentimes more quickly than what we contracted for. We will ship your orders out the day they're required. And our inventory accuracy is generally right there at that 99.7% that we agreed. So that's one of the areas where we really do excel, and where we've been able to win business." Maintaining warehouse audit accuracy reinforces this consistency.

Audit accuracy rebuilds trust after failed 3PL relationships

Brands often leave a 3PL because they could no longer trust their inventory data. Audits found discrepancies too big to explain, and teams were left reconciling errors that never should have existed. Strong warehouse audit accuracy restores confidence quickly by proving that operations are aligned with the data.

As Maureen said, "For customers who have come to us from a bad 3PL relationship, they experience relief. They're suddenly seeing their business scaling, that the data supports what we agreed to, and then the trust begins to build." Audit accuracy is one of the clearest sources of that renewed trust.

Warehouse audit accuracy is now essential, not optional

As fulfillment complexity rises and customer expectations tighten, warehouse audit accuracy has become a competitive requirement. Accurate audits ensure reliable inventory, predictable operations, and stronger customer experiences.

As Connor said, "This is one of our strengths. G10 is on the cutting edge for this kind of transparency and feedback for clients." Audit accuracy is one of the most direct expressions of that strength.

If your brand wants fewer discrepancies, stronger inventory control, and a fulfillment engine built on accuracy, improving warehouse audit accuracy is the best place to start.