Whether it is a construction business, a medical facility, a retail business, or an event company you own, having an efficient and reliable inventory control plays an integral part in keeping your business going and earning. This is why a lot of companies from different sectors and industries all over the world are in a constant hunt for a modern, intuitive inventory management software that can turn such a challenging, time-consuming process into a less tedious, fast-paced, and efficient one.
Your Chosen Inventory Management Software Should Have These Features and Qualities
The market is flooded with a lot of inventory management software and the options probably have overwhelmed you when you were at the point of buying. There is no such thing as outdated software though. As long as your management software has these features and traits, you’re still good to go:
The right one is easy to use.
A retail inventory management software is genuinely easy to use if even the least tech-savvy group from your organization did not have a hard time trying to learn to use it. You are lucky if you did not fall for inventory software that promised awesome features but turned out to be complex to use. More often than not, such complexity usually requires hours of training sessions and frequent IT support which can be hassling and time-consuming.
If you want your inventory control software to work and serve its purpose as designed, it has to be friendly in terms of the learning curve and has to be engineered such that regular, non-tech savvy people can easily figure out how to use it in a matter of minutes.
Real-time updating is facilitated.
Manual management of inventories from a single site sounds like a challenge; controlling inventories kept across various locations, worse. Thanks to this digital age, managing and integrating inventory records from different locations is now viable. All you have to do is obtain an inventory control software that facilitates a no brainer sorting feature and reflects the ins and outs of inventories real-time.
It is easily customizable according to your business requirements.
You’d know you have invested in the right inventory management software if to date, amid all the expansions and evolvement your business has gone through, it can still perform the job right and sufficiently because it has allowed customization of features according to your current business needs and processes. If your business has shifted to another product or service, your inventory control software should allow you to display and track-only items and their details that matter to you at the present.
It features barcoding, QR labeling, and barcode scanning.
An inventory control software’s barcode technology has significantly made inventory tracking and management easier. This is something you can better take advantage if you have an inventory app that enables you to scan inventory items effortlessly through its barcode and QR scanning features using your mobile device. If your current inventory software lacks this feature, then you are missing a huge chunk of your inventory software’s potential.
It notifies when reordering points are nearly reached or expiry dates are nearing.
Reordering points play a major role in ensuring stock-outs especially of items with high demand are prevented. Failure to keep track of this can hamper the availability of stocks which can consequently disappoint and draw loyal customers away. If your inventory app has been promptly alerting you when your stocks are approaching their reordering levels, it’s done a great job. Otherwise, you might want to consider shifting to another software provider.
You’ll find a lot of basic inventory systems in the market today and more often than not, they all offer the same range of features; some you may or may not need, and there may also be features you wished were there but aren’t. Unfortunately, hiring a software provider to develop software that is specially designed and built for your business comes with a hefty price. As this is the case, you’ll most likely settle for the basic packages offered but that also means you’ll need to carry out a few configurations to get the setup compatible to your business process.
If you are still to purchase one, as much as possible, choose the software that considers and upholds the individuality of your business. This software should be ready in terms of implementing a number of features, tags, and custom fields that you can use according to your requirements.
It implements proper user access, permission, and data encryption.
Tracking and managing inventory records aren’t for everyone in the organization. Not all employees need access to every inventory information. You may stick to your old inventory control software if it has incorporated a proper user control and its inventory app on your phone requires login credentials upon entry and retrieval of data. Moreover, it should honor managerial rights such that particular data that can significantly contribute in decision making shall only be viewable by the managers and leaders of the organization.
You can access and use it through any mobile device.
Back in the days, businesses rely on a number of logbooks or a single old computer to store and monitor essential details about their operations. Nowadays, sticking to a single computer alone can already cause a business to fall massively behind its competition.
Apart from being an innovative and streamlined solution in managing inventories, an mobile inventory management software can get real perky and useful if inventory data can be accessed seamlessly and brilliantly on all kinds of devices from traditional desktop computers and laptops to android and apple-operated smartphones and tablets as long as they are connected to the web.
There’s no point investing in a fancy inventory control software that works on one desktop computer alone and restricts simultaneous access from multiple devices. If your current software shows such constraints, maybe it’s time to invest for an upgrade.
Inventory control entails a set of measures and practices that ensure that a sufficient amount of stocks is maintained in a company so as to be able to cater to the demands of customers and users without delay while regulating the cost of keeping stocks to a minimum and avoiding overstocking. The right inventory management software will get all of it covered.
