For decades inventory management in an average business was handled by a person with a clipboard and a lot of time on their hands wandering through warehouses and stockrooms writing down what they see. That is assuming that the business had any inventory management at all. In this day and age, inventory management software makes the task much easier and more effective. There are many software products to choose from, and while the natural tendency is to look for the cheapest price, there are many other factors to consider, so some care must be taken in selecting the right one.
Organization
Since the primary job of inventory management software is to keep you organized, the first thing you should look for is software that appears to be organized. Good software will allow you to configure it to your needs so that you can organize data however you want. In any case, inventory records should be organized in a way that makes it easy for you to find what you have in inventory and to observe trends so that you can better estimate when you need to bulk up your inventory and when you can let it run low.
Versatility
Flexibility is very important in software to manage your inventory because your business is not static. As your business grows and changes, you might be adding warehouses or automating processes. You might start with a manual scanning system and find as your business grows that it makes more sense to integrate your cash registers or online ordering system so that inventory is updated automatically. You want a system that can be customized and will grow with you.
Security
Imagine that someone unscrupulous knew exactly what you had in every warehouse, and how much that inventory was worth. That’s exactly what would happen if someone were able to hack your computer with the inventory management software on it. Good software needs to be accessible enough to allow multiple employees to enter data, but it needs to have passwords and encryption to make it secure enough that an outsider or former employee cannot gain access to vital inventory records.
If you’re ready to start using software to control your inventory.
