10 Inventory Management Stock Control Tips For Your Business

Set Up An Inventory System

Did you know an effective inventory management can contribute to a big part of your business profits?
The real time inventory tracking , warehouse management , consequently leading to a smooth supply chain management , can help small business save time and money. However, it is seen small businesses are quite casual about the inventory management, which can be detrimental to their business health in long term.

Using an inventory management software can give more inventory control to the small business owners . It promotes best practices among inventory managers to maintain minimum stock levels and calculate required order quantity .

A few things to remember when you set up an inventory system -

1. Have not more than one or two persons responsible for inventory. This way it will be easy to maintain records and hold accountability.

2. Get an inventory management software for real time tracking .

3. A point of sale (pos system) can help auto-track sales .

4. Always have a back-end. You would not want to lose all your valuable data in case there is a glitch.

5. Set low stock alerts in the Inventory Management software . This will help you avoud out-of-stock situations.

Make Sure You Can Track Changes

Inventory tracking follows up through every single stage of your supply chain right from ordering raw materials to receiving and then order fulfillment.

Inventory Management software can help you with features for in-depth tracking of goods.

1. Manually tracking of goods through spreadsheets can be time-consuming. Besides, it would be difficult for managers to manually record customer returns and damaged goods.

2. An inventory management control system when integrated with accounting system give you a daily view of stock levels.

3. Similarly, when using a perpetual inventory system , the pos can auto-update the inventory levels. It helps track inventory turnover , returns and more .

Track Everything From New arrivals to obsolete inventory

• Real time inventory tracking is the very purpose of any inventory management software . Tracking stock levels gives managers an idea of what quantity of goods are left. As a result, managers can place purchase orders well in advance. It helps them to maintain safety stock .
• A barcode scanner linked to a pos system helps keep track of goods from the moment of arrival. When integrated, it auto-updates the stock levels in the inventory management software.
• The integrated inventory management systems keep track of the sales, what items are being sold most and least. This gives inventory managers prepare purchase orders as per the trend, ensuring effective order management and warehouse management .

Track When Items are Ordered and Shipped

• Inventory management includes ordering goods, both-- raw materials and finished products, their sales and storage.
• If it is an e-commerce firm, order management becomes highly significant here. An order management solution can help businesses monitor the movement of their package and keep the customers updated.
• Features like Drop Shipment and Back Ordering helps to create purchase order directly from sales. It even enables manufacturers ship the goods directly to the customers to ensure timely order fulfillment.
• The best part of an order management solution is that you can integrate it with all third-party apps . And get all orders on a single platform.

Track When Items are Received and Sold

Most of the products and packages have barcodes these days. These barcodes include details of the goods like manufacturing date, product dimensions. These products are scanned on arrival and the details get saved in the inventory management software. When these products are sold, the pos software automatically reduces the quantity from the inventory control system . This real time inventory tracking gives managers a glimpse of stock turnover.

Track Your Working Capital

• To maintain safety stock, manage vendors , customers and supply chain, working capital is a must. Integrate your inventory management system with accounting software to understand how much you are spending on what goods.
• Shorten the outstanding window- reduce the number of days it takes for a customer to pay you. This will improve your cash flow.
• Use inventory control system to forecast the demand and invest in the required products.

Optimize for Inventory Traceability

• To make sure you have the right amount of inventory, take current stock levels, demand trends and storage capacity into consideration.
• Pos system, inventory management software, generate sales analytics report. These help in determining the most sold products. These help inventory managers plan ahead of the festive season. For instance, while placing purchase orders for Christmas, managers can log into the inventory system and go through the sales reports of the previous Christmas to get an idea of best-sellers!

Track Variance

• Tracking variance helps in spotting the difference between planned and actual numbers.
• Prepare a variance report that shows targeted inventory and financial outcomes with actual outcomes. This helps Small Business in preparing inventory budgets and deciding how much money to allot and on what categories of goods.
• Inventory management software helps to speeds up and error-proofs variance analysis.

Track On-Hand Inventory

• Safety stock refers to extra stock businesses maintain to mitigate the situations of stock-outs. Inventory management software facilitates real time tracking . It allows managers to the latest stock levels after every transaction when integrated with point of sale system . This way, managers can ensure safety stock is maintained.
• Also, you can set low stock' alerts. Once the stock levels reach below the prescribed level, it can notify the managers and required steps can be taken,

Track Expected Inventory

Expected inventory is usually paid for with a purchase order. Inventory solutions like order management system can help you track inventory on order and inventory received. Tracking expected inventory allows business to accept the orders from customers and give them estimated dates.

For instance, if a small business is expecting a bulk order of ceramic mugs by next week, they can update it on website. Now, the customers know the ceramic mugs will be available only after 7 days and their estimated delivery might take a few days more. This way they can place informed orders.

Explore Best Inventory solutions to exercise higher Stock Control