Inventory management is a process that helps in tracking and managing stocked goods. It helps businesses to manage the constant flow of goods and prevent excess flow of goods or declining them to levels that can create a problem for the company. Thus, making inventory management crucial not just for retail stores (both online and offline) but also for every business that needs to keep stock of goods, be it raw material or finished products.
Automation is the way out of it. Deploying a good and robust inventory control system software will help you not only organize the warehouse and reduce holding cost but will also help in saving time, lowering operational costs and increasing efficiency. Most businesses start managing their inventory on spreadsheets, which makes it difficult for them to keep a track of the stock, shipment, and delivery of products etc. In addition, errors while feeding data on these sheets are one of the commonest things that happen when manually managing the inventory. Also, it is not just time-consuming, it also requires a lot of additional resources, which will eventually drive you away from focusing on the core business, leave aside your goal to get more and more satisfied customers. But, with a plethora of Inventory System Solutions available in the market, choosing the best inventory management software can be tricky. To make it easier for you, here is a list of things that a good inventory management software should have –
- Inventory Tracking: While choosing the best inventory management software, make sure the software comes with inventory tracking feature. It is one of the primary functions of such software. This feature will not only let you track the stock in your warehouse but will also keep you updated about received goods and number of fulfilled consignments.
- Warehouse Management: If you have warehouses located in different locations, managing them manually is not possible. While choosing a software, you must make sure that it comes with warehouse management feature. This feature lets you keep track of the stock level, manage inter-warehouse transfer and generate reports of each warehouse, irrespective of their location
- Price: Price is one of the most important things that you should consider when buying a software. There is a number of different software for managing inventory is available in the market ranging from Rs. 1800 – Rs.2000 which can go up to Rs. 2 lakhs, depending on the functionalities they offer. You can choose a software depending on your business needs.
- Reporting & Analytics: A good inventory management solution comes with reporting and analytics features. Analytics is an essential feature because it provides an overview of the warehouse as well as the stock available, letting you make better business decisions. Similarly, reporting lets you know about demand and supply of a particular product and determine the inventory requirement.
- Data Importing & Exporting: Most of you might be using spreadsheets or free-online tool to manage the inventory. However, if you are planning to deploy a robust system for managing the inventory, make sure the software you choose comes with data importing and exporting feature. This will let you import or export data that you have been maintaining. Also, the software must be capable of storing the data in the same format that you have been maintaining.