The Live Inventory Modification tool in the Barcode Inventory Management app for BigCommerce allows you to instantly adjust inventory levels by scanning product barcodes. This feature is ideal for quick corrections, cycle counts, damaged stock adjustments, or reconciling unexpected discrepancies — all without editing products manually inside BigCommerce.
What Is Live Inventory Modification?
Live Inventory Modification lets you scan a product and immediately update its inventory in a single step. Unlike batch-based tools (Add, Update, Reduce), live modification is designed for fast, one-off adjustments while walking the floor or scanning shelves.
This tool is especially useful for:
- Fixing bin discrepancies
- Adjusting for damaged or missing items
- Fixing small errors without creating a batch
- Quick on-the-spot corrections during audits
- Removing inventory for products or services offered by your store (like a bakery that sells ingredients where those ingredients are also used to make other products being sold, or an automotive detailing shop that both sells cleaning products and uses them to detail cars)
Inventory Modification Options
You can select which action you’re looking to perform on a scanned item by selecting the option from the section at the top of the screen. The adding and subtracting inventory options change the items’ quantity in stock by the quantity listed in the Action Option’s “Change by amount” field. The “Set Inventory” option will set a scanned item’s quantity in stock to the value in the “Change by amount” field, while the “View Inventory” option doesn’t use the “Change by amount” field, and instead will simply read the inventory of the item related to a scanned barcode.
Scanning Barcodes
Once you’ve picked the option you’re looking for, chosen the inventory location you’re looking for, and you’ve entered the amount you’re looking to change an item’s inventory by (if applicable), you should click on the “Scan Barcode” input field to begin scanning. Any item that is scanned will search both the SKU field on products and variants, as well as the UPC field for both (which can contain and type of barcode information including UPC, EAN and ISBN).
Session Options
As items get scanned, the items will appear in the session information below. Depending on what action was taken, some slightly different information will appear. In all cases, the product’s SKU will appear, and the SKU’s specific variant options will appear (or a message saying that the SKU was related to a product). For adding, subtracting and setting inventory, you’ll see both a starting and new quantity showing the quantity of the item in stock before the change, and after. You’ll also get a “Quantity” value on the right side – for any of the changing actions that value is the quantity in stock after the change, and for the view action that is just the quantity in stock.
You can download the results of your current session by clicking the “Download sesssion information” button where you’ll get information about all the actions taken in the current session. If you need to clear the session, you can also click the “Clear session” button and the form will be cleared.
Best Practices for Precise Inventory Control
- Double-check the selected location before updating.
- Scan items directly from shelves to avoid SKU mix-ups.
- Perform regular cycle counts using live updates for accuracy.
Barcode Inventory Management for BigCommerce
Barcode Inventory Management can help you manage your store’s warehouse, inventory and orders. Try now, and get a 7 day free trial!
Hopefully this article has inspired you to make improvements to your inventory management systems. If you’re interested in reading more, check out our blog here, or try out the apps today. The Shopify, Ecwid by Lightspeed and BigCommerce versions of the app come with a 1 week free trial, so you can test them out, hassle free!
If you have any questions about A Thousand App’s apps, please reach out to us at support@athousandapps.com and we’ll happily address any concerns you have!