Last Updated on May 22, 2019 by Larious

An inventory management software is a tool that helps in tracking the inventories moving in and out of the company’s locations. This system practically covers everything starting from the production of the item, it’s warehousing, shipping, and retail. The system allows the company to track every movement of the stock.

An inventory management software that is well-designed and fully-functional should be able to offer you with updated information on what is in stock, where the stock is located, how much the stock can be sold, and until when the stock will last. This information helps in ruling out the risk of overstocking and stock outs which can greatly obstruct a company’s profitability and sales cycle.

Below are the benefits of utilizing an inventory management software to your business:

• Having a centralized storage

If you inventories are stored at different locations, it can get difficult to manage your orders and in sending the right products to the right customers. By having a well-designed warehouse tool, it can help you track the availability of different products and which will eventually keep the customers informed about the status of their shipment.

• Having well-organized stock operations

By utilizing an inventory management software, it will be able to help you keep a complete track on all of your products in stock. This will save you time and effort because you will no longer need to rush to your warehouse just to check the availability of any product if the product’s demand arises.

• It helps improve sales productivity

By being able to keep a complete track of all of your stocks, you can now prevent losing your customers and also reduce the risk of making common human reporting mistakes like inaccurate counting of product. Furthermore, by having an inventory management system in place, you will be able to easily meet the delivery timelines. The customers will not have to wait for a long time for their shipment to arrive. They can also easily track their goods and know the accurate day of the product’s arrival.

• Have an adjusted order frequency

If having stock outs is bad for your business, overstocking is even worse. By having a good inventory management system, you will be able to track your actual stock supplies and re-order the stocks when needed. This will also eliminate the wastage of products which will, in turn, lead to huge amounts of money losses.

• Have satisfied customers

By being able to provide accurate responses, timely delivery, and tailored services, your customers are surely going to be a lot happier. The customer will be able to track the status of their shipment and will not be facing the risk of a late notice of product unavailability.

• The business has accurate planning and forecasting

By employing a good inventory management system, this will allow you to plan for the future. You can now keep a close check on the stock of all of your products and be able to manage and re-order them accordingly. Furthermore, most systems come with analytical tools that will help in gauging trends, which will open up opportunities and enable you to measure your sales and productivity.

Here are also some of the common features of an inventory management system:

• A re-ordering point

By having an inventory management software, this will offer you a list of products along with their quantities that are required for stock. These points can also be programmed into the software so that it will alert the manager about reordering the product. This will then prevent a shortage of stocks as well as the issue of overstocking.

• Allows asset tracking

This will allow you to track your products that are present in the warehouse or the store through its barcode, radio frequency identification, and lot tracking number or serial number.

• Provide product listing

This will allow you to simplify and organize your inventory with the assistance of significant details like cost, availability, store keeping unit, etc. this will also allow you to create options with every item based on their elementary attributes and keep your inventory in a systemized way.

• Barcode scanning

This feature will allow you to track your products through their barcodes. This can also be done through smartphones, thereby eliminating the need to buy expensive scanning hardware.

• Inventory reporting tools

In developing inventory total reports, order history, and transaction reports, there are a whole lot of reporting tools that can help you with these. These tools will enable you to develop a unified workflow by learning about your products in stock, what items need to be re-ordered, which product is profitable and many more.

• Allow inventory forecasting

With inventory forecasting, you will be able to decide on the right amount of stock for your company. This is so that you will not have too much stocks or that you are holding too little stocks. Both of these situations can be injurious for your business and may have a negative impact on your sales and productivity.

• Receive inventory alerts

These inventory alerts can be created and then sent to your email or text message whenever the inventory levels fall below the threshold that you have set. This will also help you acquire an advance notice about goods restocking.

• Access on accounting tools

These accounting tools like cost layering, overhead allocation, measurements, disclosures, etc. will help you in deriving an accurate stock valuation.

• Enable raw material tracking

This feature will assist you in determining if you still have enough raw materials on hand to launch new jobs in the production process.

• Determine inventory levels for parts and finished products

This feature will help you keep track of finished goods that are available in the warehouse or store that can be promptly shipped to the customers. Furthermore, this will let you track the availability of parts, in case a customer will order for a customized product.

• Allow automatic re-ordering

This will allow you to automatically re-order the supplies that are based upon your re-order points. When the stock will reach its minimum level, an automatic purchase order will be generated so that you will be confident that you still remain on top of your inventories at all times.