Counting stock where there's no internet.

The short answer: two kinds of inventory app work with no internet. A local-only app keeps everything on one phone and never needs a connection. A cloud app with an offline mode lets several people work offline on their phones and syncs the changes when the signal comes back. If more than one person counts or hands things out, you need the second kind, and the details of its offline mode matter more than the feature tick on the pricing page.

ItemTally today needs a connection: scanning works in the phone’s browser, online. Offline scanning comes with our iPhone and Android apps, which are built and in testing, and not yet released. Below is how to choose, and how to count a dead zone with ItemTally in the meantime.

Where the signal goes

Think about where counting happens: the basement storeroom under the shop, the back of a van in an underground garage, the venue floor before doors, the container at the back of the yard. Steel shelving and concrete block a phone signal well. The desk has perfect wifi and none of your stock.

That’s why the clipboard survives. Paper works anywhere, so an app that needs bars loses to it in exactly the rooms where the stock is.

The two kinds of offline inventory app

Local-only apps. Search an app store for “offline inventory” and most results are this kind: the register lives on the device, often with no account at all.

• Good for one person keeping one list: a home inventory, a market stall, a single workshop.
• Nothing to sync, so nothing to go wrong when the signal drops.
• The list exists on one phone. A colleague can’t see it, two people can’t count at once, and backing it up is your job.
• There’s no shared history of who took what, because there’s only one user.

Cloud apps with an offline mode. The register lives on a server and the phone app keeps a copy it can work from without a connection. Changes made offline wait on the phone and are sent when it reconnects.

• Good for a team: everyone works from the same register, and the desk sees counts once the phones sync.
• The offline mode is usually in the phone app only. The web app needs a connection.
• How well it works depends on the details below, and they vary a lot between vendors.

How offline modes differ in practice

Two examples from vendors’ own help pages, checked on 18 October 2026:

• Sortly says offline mode is available in its Android and iOS apps only, not the web app. You turn it on yourself under Settings, Sync Inventory, Disable Sync. The app then shows the inventory as it was at that moment, so Sortly advises a full sync first. Changes are sent once you’re back online and sync is on again. Its offline feature page says feature availability varies by plan.
• itemit says it supports limited offline access for viewing and capturing asset data, and that an internet connection is needed to sync changes to the cloud. Its offline mode article covers the mobile apps.

Both are honest about limits, and both mean the same thing in practice: read the offline article in the help center, and try it in airplane mode during the trial.

Questions to ask before you pick one

1. Is offline on the plan you’ll actually pay for? Check the plan table, not the feature page.
2. Phone app only, or the browser too? If your team scans in the browser, offline usually isn’t there.
3. Do you switch it on before you lose signal? An app that needs you to go offline on purpose is less forgiving than one that just keeps working when the bars drop.
4. What can you do offline? Ask about each job you do away from the desk: finding an item by its code, counting, handing things out, taking things back.
5. What happens when two people change the same item? Ask whether the later sync overwrites the earlier one, or whether both changes are kept.
6. After the sync, can you see who did what? An offline count should land in the history with a name and a time like any other.

Then test it: put the phone in airplane mode, scan and count ten things, reconnect, and check the numbers and the history on another device.

What ItemTally does today, and what it doesn’t

Today: ItemTally works in the phone’s browser. Scan, take, return and count all need a connection. If your stock is in a dead zone and you need an app that works there right now, the phone apps above offer offline modes and ItemTally doesn’t yet.

In testing: the iPhone and Android apps keep a copy of your register on the phone. Scans resolve against it, and counts and hand-overs wait in an ordered outbox until there’s a connection. Then they’re sent in order and land in the same logbook as everything else, with the person’s name. The apps will be part of every plan, including the free one. We’ll announce the release on the changelog.

Counting a dead zone with ItemTally now

Until the apps are out, the paper route works and loses nothing:

1. Print a count sheet per place. The free stock count sheet lists each item with its code, in the order you walk the shelves. Untick “Show expected” for a blind count.
2. Count on paper in the basement. Write what’s there in the Counted column.
3. Type the counts into the Excel file back where there’s signal.
4. Re-import it. In Imports, choose Update items I already have. Each row is matched to the item already in your register, and each difference is posted as a count line in the logbook with the file name. Nothing is duplicated. See import and re-import.