Inventory Management

Inventory management software for your business is a must to succeed. There is always the need to evaluate levels of stock now and then. This helps to ensure that everything is on the right track. And that is why, business inventory management is and will always be an integral part of any business whether small or big. However, when you are running a small business, inventory management could become quite overwhelming and expensive.

Well, this is mostly the case when there are hiccups in records keeping on the products being delivered, manufactured, as well as being shipped. All in all, everything could happen in a more timely fashion when you have a good inventory management strategy. So, you need to ask yourself this: did you experience any increase in shipping costs? Were there higher insurance costs and more overtime working? Did the business experience product depreciation or chaos in the factory floor?

If yes, this article is for you. Below I will discuss a few strategies that you can incorporate in your business and they will help you to handle some of these issues related to poor inventory management in a better way. Also, I will discuss what you need to look for in a good inventory management software. Remember, if you spend more time catching up with your product, the less time you get to spend making your customers happy.

What is inventory management? 

Contrary to what most people think, inventory is not a single discrete entity. Instead, it refers to several different types of items. In that case, inventory management happens to be that vital part of the management of supply chains. It aims at ensuring that the business has all the right products, and they are all in just the ideal quantity when needed.

Effective management of the inventory helps to minimize the costs of having excessive stock while at the same time helping to maximize the sales. When there is good management in the business, you are able to keep track of the business stock level in real-time. And this helps in streamlining this whole inventory management process.

In that case, when you do a good inventory management in your business, you get to have the expected products in the expected quantity. Hence you easily avoid situations where you are out of stock. While on the other hand, the funds are also held up in the excessive stock. More to that, you ensure that there is minimal spoilage of products. A good stock management help the spending excess funds on stock. And that will only end up occupying all the space in the warehouse.

Types of Inventory Management

Inventory management could be subdivided into two categories. This includes the perpetual inventory and periodic inventory.

• The Periodic Inventory

Businesses that operate under periodic inventories only update their stock management at a specific times. In most cases, it could be a year but it could also be more frequent than that. The periodic inventory management is mostly associated with businesses that make large volume sales.

Hence with the large stock turn over, it could be hard for such businesses to take stock on weekly or daily basis. All in all, there are disadvantages of using the periodic stock management method. This method of stock management has one of the major downside. For example of this  the business barely knows the amount of their product list for the better part of the year.

With this inventory management procedure. Very large amounts of inventory could even go missing on the businesses and the owner will barely realize it. For that reason, before going with periodic inventory management, know that inaccuracies could be quite costly in such a case.

• Perpetual Inventory System Software

The perpetual inventory management involves updating of the inventory management records very often. In that with every incoming or outgoing item in the business, records are made. This kind of inventory management gives the business more control over their available product.

Mostly there will be a centralized computer and everything in the business will be kept up to date. This makes sure that mistakes are completely minimized. There could be the use of hardware such as the wireless barcodes scanners. By scanning products into a software ensures that inventory updates are made quickly and accurately.

Therefore, perpetual inventory management is ideal for businesses that have a low count on their staff. The barcode scanner hardware connect with the Linbis Inventory Management to receive and count products. This will makes the storage of inventory data understandable and secure.

Today, has become quite a common way of inventory management for small business. With Linbis this has proven to be quite effective and easy to use. Perpetual inventory management has been vetted as the best method but its only best if the inventory is managed well.

However, if there are glitches in the record keeping it only means that the unreliable and inaccurate inventory tracking will be like a plaque to your business. This means that investing in an expensive inventory management system is not always the catch all solution to problems faced with inventory management.

Small Business Inventory Management Software

Just a few years ago, businesses had to use a pen and a paper to keep track of inventory in the businesses. Well, gone are those days.  Businesses now use Linbis together with of what we call barcodes or rather the Radio Frequency Identification. Linbis Inventory Management Software helps to keep track of incoming shipments and outgoing products.

Linbis inventory management software consists of a couple of applications. It helps to manage stock, track, as well as organize sales, purchase of materials among other process involved in production. By using our out of the box small business inventory management software from Linbis Logistics, you will be able to minimize time and effort that was put in the previous year’s in tracking products.

Instead, this effort is currently focused on the analysis, finding as well as reduction of inefficiencies in the business inventory.

Barcode Generator with Inventory Management Software

Linbis Barcoding system is the program that gets to read, process and then store the information extracted from the barcodes. Any company can benefits for such a product. Our small business inventory management is ready to use online. For enterprise we develop custom inventory management application.

How to Choose Inventory Management Software for Small Business

A good inventory management software allows you to perform the following:

• To attribute as many variations as possible to each product in terms of color, size etc
• It store your entire product portfolio in a centralized place
• To see real time entry of orders so that you can get down to work immediately
• Intelligently manage your stock
• Effectively track the orders in your business
• It manage the team through assigning of daily goals and duties
• To securely and easily access the data base from anywhere. The cloud Inventory management.
• Barcode generator tool create labels with barcode to assign to a product.

-Inventory Management for small business Techniques

Inventory management software is always a challenge for most small business owners. This is because, when the small business carry excess inventory, it could loose money. They have to pay almost 30% extra on the costs incurred annually as compared to other businesses that are operating at their optimal levels.

However, when you follow the steps below, you will be able to cut costs across your business by at least 10%.

• Invest Time in your Forecasting

When it comes to business inventory management, forecasting is always a very crucial part of it. In that, the projected sales should at least be based on factors such as the historical sales figures of the business. Another good tactic is predicting growth of the business, the market trends, promotions, the economy and marketing efforts.

• Be Quick to Identify the low-return Stock

Well, this is a very basic technique that you should never miss out on. Look up in your business and identify any stock that hasn’t been sold in the last 6-12 months. If you get your hands on it, it’s high time that you stop stocking this item. Consider some special strategies that you can also use to get rid of this low returns stock.

For instance you could use the stock for promotions or offer special discounts on the prices. This is because any excess stock in your business wastes your capital as well as your space.

• Stock Management Software to Audit the Availability Product

No matter how great your software for stock management is, this is a must to do. Somehow you may still need to periodically count your total inventory. In order to ensure that your actual stock in the business matches up with the approximates you have.

Different businesses tend to use very diverse techniques to conduct this process. This includes; annual physical inventory count with use of Linbis barcoding reader software. Where each item is counted as well as spot checking is done. This is quite useful especially where products may be having stocking issues or are fast moving. It also helps with product location at the warehouse.

• Cloud-Based Inventory Management

Check your product level from anywhere online with Linbis Inventory Control Software on the cloud. By this I mean that you should at least look for a inventory management software online. Linbis offers real-time analytics on all sales, products, and orders. In that, look for a software that is capable of connecting directly to the businesses’ sales point as this helps to automatically adjust stock levels every time any sales are made.

Also, you get to receive stock alerts on a daily basis. So that you are aware of the items that are running low or are completely out of stock. Hence, you get to make more restocking orders in good time.

• Ensure Constant Tracking of Stock Levels

If by any chance you want your small business to be successful, you need to invest in a solid system. It will help that you put in place a system to help you track the stock levels in order to prioritize the most expensive products. An effective inventory management software will save both your money and time since it will do most of the heavy-lifting tasks for you.

• Don’t assume Quality Control

Despite the kind of products you offer in your business, this one thing that you should never forget. It’s always necessary to make sure that at all times your products are fully functional and they all look great.

This process is something as easy as having the employees doing a quick analysis. By examining the products during the stock audits. This process could include a checklist for correct product labelling or any damaged products. With the use of Linbis barcode generator you will be able to assign label to you products and scan barcodes for easing processing.

• Reduce the Repair Times for Equipment

The essential machinery in most business are not always in the right working order. For that reason, it’s always necessary to manage such assets in the business. This is because a single broken machinery could cost you a lot.

However, when you make it a routine to monitor every machinery and all its parts. Which will help you to full understand the life cycle for that machinery. This helps you with prior preparedness before unexpected breakdowns occur.

• Consider Hiring a Business Stock Controller

In most businesses it’s the stock control that is used for purposes such as showing the available amount of inventory in the business. This applies to almost all items including the finished products and raw materials.

Therefore, if you tend to have a lot of inventory in your business, it’s always a good idea to have someone who will be responsible for this. With a dedicated stock controller in your business, they could take care of all received deliveries, purchased orders. This person must ensure that all incoming items match with the orders made.

• Use the First in First Out Approach with a Barcode Generator Software

Well, in this case goods get to be sold in the same order that they were purchased in. This applies in the case where we have perishable products such as flowers, food or beauty products.

Besides, this technique could also work for non-perishable good too since. If they are left sitting there for too long the only end up getting damaged, expired as well as unsellable. In a warehouse, you could add new items from the back so that older items are pushed to the front.

With Linbis software you will be able to identify which product was first in. Our barcode generator software print date in, expiration and other information in the barcode scanner. 

• Go for Drop Shipping

I don’t know if most business owners know this but if a business owner adopts the drop shipping, they can comfortably sell goods without having to hold the inventory themselves.

Instead, it happens to be the manufacturers or the wholesaler who is the one who is responsible for taking care of the inventory as well as the shipping of the products as soon as purchases are made by a customer from the store. With this method, you don’t have to be worried about inventory keeping or fulfillment anymore. They use their inventory management software such Linbis.

By allowing third party to manage your products, real estate rent is minimize. Must third party logistics warehouse use software like Linbis Logistics Software to manage their customer stocks. They give access to Linbis portal so customer can access their inventory, orders, shipments and sales without the need of a space. This process is mostly on e-commerce website where is call 3PLs.