Managing your inventory is one of the most herculean task that if not done properly, can greatly affect the operations of your business. So, it is important that you have good inventory management software in place in order to help you run your business smoothly.
Regardless of whether you are running a physical store, an online store, a supermarket, or any other business, having an effective inventory management software is one that you should invest on.
Short Background on Inventory Management and Inventory Management Software
One way of determining where your inventories are, including the placement of your inventories in and out of your warehouse is through the implementation of an inventory management system.
The goal of putting an inventory management system in place is for you to get an idea as to where your inventories are at any point in time, and as to how much of your inventory should you manage in order to get an accurate amount of inventory levels.
There are companies who choose to scan inventories through barcode scanners just to increase the efficiency of inventory movement including its pickup routes and accuracy.
These systems have the ability to integrate with other types of software systems like the point of sale, channel management, shipping – this will enable you to have a personalized integration stack to match the unique needs of your business.
Significant Features of an Inventory Management Software
In choosing an inventory management software for your business, you should see to it that it will offer you all of the necessary features that will let you have effective operations in managing your inventory.
Below are some of the significant features that you should look out for in getting inventory management software:
- The inventory management software should enable you to do barcode scanning
With barcode scanning, you can easily identify and track your items, and then you can integrate this with your inventory management software for you to attain instant product identification and labeling.
- The inventory management software should enable you to optimize your inventory
By having an inventory management software in place, you should now be able to maintain the right level of inventory, thereby avoiding over or under-stocking of any of your item. This feature is very useful especially if you are dealing with products that are affected by the rise and fall in seasonal demands.
- The inventory management software should let your receive stock notifications
By having an inventory management software in place, you should also be able to receive alerts and other notifications regarding the status of your stocks like over or under-stocking as defined by your company’s threshold. This will allow you to give promotional discounts in order to clear out your extra stocks on hand.
- The inventory management software should enable you to generate useful reports
Your inventory management should let you view your sales history by way of listing your most popular products. This should also let you manage the items that are in your inventory that has not yet reached their targeted sales level.
- The inventory management software should allow you to manage your inventories in multi-locations
With this feature, you should now be able to manage your warehouses and points-of-sale simultaneously. This is because all of the locations of your inventories will now be integrated into a single inventory management system.
- The inventory management software should let your manage stock returns efficiently
Because you now have a more concrete control over the whereabouts of your stocks, you should now be able to reduce your time-to-return by way of automating the entire return process.
What Makes Inventory Management Important
One of the ways to maintain the longevity of your company is through the use of an inventory management system. If your company has an organized inventory system, then the rest of your supply-chain management system will eventually fall into place. Absent a functioning inventory management system, there will be a high-risk of wrong deliveries and shipments, overstocking, errors in picking items, and many more.
This is why having a proper inventory management system is the key to avoid all of the incorrect pick lists, messy shelf labels, or even a messy warehouse in general. If you have incorrect picking of your inventory, then this can also lead to incorrect shipments because of a lack of quality control procedures.
If your organization is still using the manual method in placing orders along with not getting a full picture as to what the state of your inventory is, then there is also a high possibility that you will end up going out of stock and/or overstock.
Some Inventory Management Techniques that You Should Know
Inventory management can be as powerful as you want to use it. With that, you can be assured that investing time and money in having an inventory management software set up will enable you to attract more good luck to your business.
So, here are some inventory management techniques that can be of help in implementing inventory management software in your organization:
- Maintain or establish an economic order quantity
The economic order quantity or more commonly known by its abbreviation as EOQ is a formula that answers to the quantity that the company should purchase, by taking into account the set of variables that could affect the purchase volume, the cost of the production, the rate of demand, and other factors.
The main goal of having an EOQ is to reduce its related costs. So, the formula in getting the EOQ is by way of identifying the highest number of product units to order to be able to minimize buying. The EOQ helps most of the companies in freeing the tied-up cash that is in their inventory.
- See to it that you can establish a minimum order quantity
This is the number of inventory items that you should purchase at the minimum, and if you are not able to purchase the quantity set at minimum, then there is a chance that such a supplier will not sell the items to you.
