What the documents look like
Store counts and loss control examine differences between book inventory and physical counts, along with shrinkage. This category does not handle supplier accounts payable. The primary data sources are POS inventory, WMS, monitoring systems, and the SB/T inventory standard. Routine documents include count sheets, variance analyses, loss-report approvals, and monitoring review records.
Procurement and supplier materials serve a referential role here. Purchase orders, supplier delivery notes, and return records help explain where count variances originate. Supplier profiles help verify the delivering entity. These materials update monthly or quarterly, so workflow routing processes them by batch. Real-time synchronization is not required within a single count cycle.
At the workflow routing step, the practical question is which collected values and which human choices move a case forward, and which business actions remain outside the workflow. The form input node and the user selection node are the two documented interaction points that shape routing.
Constraints at the workflow routing step
The form input node triggers an interaction state. The conversation records the workflow state, the dialog box is hidden, and the workflow waits. After the user completes required fields and submits, the node collects the submitted form values and passes them to subsequent nodes. The user selection node also enters an interaction state and records workflow state. When the user makes a selection, the node evaluates that selection and executes the corresponding "yes" branch.
Both node types record workflow state as a documented behavior. No separate global state-recording switch is described. Routing must treat the collected fields and the selected branch as inputs to later nodes, not as completed business decisions.
For procurement and supplier materials, routing needs to accept the count sheet, variance analysis, loss-report approval, and monitoring review record as separate inputs and compare each output against its input. Retrieval results supply candidate materials only. Retrieval is not authorization. Whether a loss report is approved and whether monitoring review is granted are human or downstream business actions. The nodes do not replace approval.
Hypothetical paper test case, clearly labelled as a constructed sample and not an actual record: the source text reads, "Close-of-business count on 31 March 2025, Store A snack foods section count sheet records potato chips book quantity 120 units, physical count 113 units, variance 7 units; the same day's supplier delivery note records 30 units of this SKU arrived, signed for by the store warehouse keeper." The proposed copy sentence under review reads, "The 7-unit variance was caused by the supplier delivering short, and the loss-report approval can pass directly." The pending request under review reads, "Based on the above count sheet and delivery note, approve a loss report of 7 units for this SKU."
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Type | Relationship to this page's documents |
|---|---|---|
| Form input node | Interaction node | Collects required fields such as count sheet number, variance SKU, and physical count quantity |
| User selection node | Interaction node | Presents the loss-report approval request as a choice and executes the corresponding "yes" branch |
| Output handoff | Node connection | Passes form-collected fields to subsequent retrieval or judgment nodes |
| Retrieval scope | Knowledge base scope | Limited to count sheets, variance analyses, loss-report approvals, and monitoring review records |
| Hypothetical starting value | Trial starting point for this sample | Variance quantity starting value set to 7 for comparison against the count sheet physical count; not an official default |
| External action separation | Downstream process | Loss-report write and approval effect require a separate business interface |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as loss-report authorization. In the hypothetical sample, retrieving the count sheet and delivery note shows only that the materials exist. Whether the loss-report approval passes still requires human or downstream judgment. Retrieval results do not constitute authorization.
- Treating the user selection node's "yes" branch as completed approval. The user selection node executes a branch. Approval taking effect is a downstream business action.
- Equating the variance quantity directly with a delivery shortfall. In the sample, the count sheet records a variance of 7 units, and the delivery note records 30 units arrived. These are different fields. The source text does not state a cause for the shortfall. Attributing the variance remains unverified.
How to verify the setup
- Input the hypothetical sample's count sheet source text and the proposed copy sentence. Compare whether the proposed sentence contains the attribution wording "was caused by the supplier delivering short." If that wording appears, judge the sentence as unsupported, because the source text does not state a cause for the shortfall.
- Input the pending request "approve a loss report of 7 units for this SKU." Compare whether the node output marks that request as approved. If it marks the request as approved, judge the output as exceeding authority, because loss-report approval requires a separate business interface.
- Input the count sheet and the delivery note as two materials. Compare whether the fields collected by the form input node include the count sheet number, the variance SKU, and the physical count quantity. If any required field is missing, judge the collection as incomplete.