Many businesses, no matter how big or how small, has a large amount of inventory that they need to manage. If anyone tries to do it manually, it can be quite difficult. Using a pen and paper inventory management system allows for errors or, even worse, pages found destroyed accidentally. To eliminate these errors and make the entire process easier, business owners can invest in inventory management software.
Design the online inventory management software to integrate with special hardware to keep track of a business’s entire inventory. It can track how many items are in a warehouse, how many needs to distribute, which clients have purchased items from the inventory, and when we should reorder items. Machines like barcode readers are using to provide input to the software, although entering items manually is also possible.
Businesses always have to walk a fine line between having enough inventories on hand and having too much. Too much of an item results in wasted space that we can use to bring in more varied items or to store popular items. However, if a business doesn’t have enough items, they will frequently have to tell their clients that they will have to wait until the product is in stock again, and this can lead to losing business.
How to manage inventory?
Ordering the Inventory
To do this we need to work out what we need to order based on the customer demand. We never get the estimate of customer demand perfect but after a period of time, we can get close. So to confirm this step again, we need to order the stock that we expect customers to purchase over the next week or month depending on the shelf life of your product.
Receive the stock
This step is the simple process of receiving the stock. However what we need here is systems of control to ensure each pallet, crate, and box to check against the purchase ordered. Hence, we can ensure that what we have ordered has been received.
Sale and dispatch of the orders
This is where stock leaves our control through sales. Items through the sales process need scanning to ensure accurate movement of the stock. If we are not giving the product directly to the customer then we need dispatch procedures to manage the outgoing orders and to ensure the accurate dispatching of the stock.
Customer returns and supplier returns
If the stock is faulty then we need to receive the stock back from the customer and then track the process of returning this to the supplier and getting a credit note. So many businesses are lazy in this area and do not have a good stock inventory management software system that helps to ensure that they not only return the stock but also get a replacement or a credit note/refund. We should not burn our money here. We only need to ensure that systems have the ability to track on supplier returns.
