Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Daily Cycle Counting for Inventory Records Accuracy (15-slide PowerPoint presentation). What good is Inventory Management if the inventory is not 98-100% accurate daily, everyday? No good! Cycle Counting is important to every department in your company. Inaccurate inventory leads to loss of sales, poor customer experience, and may indicate a more drastic issue of retail theft. [read more]
5 Tools to Help You Manage Inventory More Effectively
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For a great number of businesses, having a world-class inventory management process is critical to the success of their operation. These businesses recognize the importance of always knowing their inventory levels, their inventory holding costs, and the movement of their inventory.
To ensure that they always have real-time inventory data, most businesses now use inventory tracking software. Manual inventory tracking is being phased out in almost all sectors.
If yours is one of the companies that are looking for great software solutions to better manage their inventory, you are in luck. I have put together a list of 5 excellent inventory management tools that will completely revolutionize how you track inventory.
1. Dynamic Inventory
Dynamic Inventory calls itself the Rolls-Royce of inventory tracking. Given the features of their software and the value those features offer to businesses that use them, their claim is not farfetched.
Dynamic Inventory is developed to accommodate the demands of any business no matter its size. Whether you are a startup or a big operation with branches in several states, you will like Dynamic Inventory.
Some of the features include:
- Dynamic reporting: the major benefit of having Dynamic Inventory is the ability to tell in real time what your position is at any given time as far as your key inventory metrics are concerned. Dynamic Inventory reports visualize data in real time from all the important areas including customers, sales, purchases, and vendors.
- Low stock alert: the software will notify you whenever your stock levels drop to your pre-set minimum stock levels. These notifications can be in the form of an email, a text message, or a notification icon or dialog box on your computer screen.
- Multiple location management: if you have several warehouses, you can manage the movement of inventory in all of them from one place. You will never get things mixed up as Dynamic Inventory allows you to define locations, sub-locations, and specific stores. All the data you need for each store can be collected and updated from one portal.
Other important features include sales order management, purchase order management, product management, vendor management, audit logs, ability to limit user permissions, and consignment sales software.
2. Oracle NetSuite OneWorld
Most people who have worked in inventory management or customer relationship management are familiar with or have heard of NetSuite. Before 2016, the software was simply called NetSuite. It was acquired by Oracle in 2016 and was renamed Oracle NetSuite.
The software’s target market is mainly SMEs and it over-delivers every time for this market segment. For this segment, it can be used for customer relationship management, inventory management, and as a general ledger.
The fact that it does other functions besides inventory management does not dilute its inventory management features. In fact, it may be one of the most robust pieces of inventory management software you ever use.
Oracle NetSuite OneWorld can be comfortably used by all people handling inventory management including supervisors. It has Key Performance Indicators that can be customized by every user to define the performance areas they most care about.
3. Zoho Inventory
At only $29 per month for up to 10 users, Zoho Inventory is one of the most affordable inventory management solutions in the market right now. This $29 package will allow you to manage up to two warehouses. For greater capability, you will have to buy a bigger package.
The software has all the typical inventory management capabilities you’d want including purchase and sales order management, multiple warehouse tracking, and barcoding.
One of the best advantages of using Zoho Inventory is that it integrates seamlessly with other online solutions that a typical online retailer might use. You can integrate Zoho Inventory with Shopify, Etsy, eBay, Amazon, Stripe, and Zoho CRM.
You can also benefit from Zoho’s partnerships with various shipping carriers. They have partnered with FedEx, TNT, Australia Post, UPS, Asendia, and Fastway.
4. AdvancePro
If you need a feature-rich affordable inventory management solution for SMEs that integrates with QuickBooks and other popular accounting software, AdvancePro has got you covered.
The services offered include inventory management, order fulfillment, inventory control, order processing, management of the picking and packing process, invoicing and billing, barcode scanning, FedEx and UPS integration, and vendor purchase orders, among others.
You will be able to track inventory in several pickup locations and be able to seamlessly manage the transfer of inventory from one location to another. The software also gives re-order alerts to ensure that you never run out of stock.
5. Fishbowl Inventory
Fishbowl Inventory is one of the best inventory tracking solutions for manufacturing concerns and warehouses.
Manufacturers are able to easily create work orders for almost all jobs including assembly and disassembly. These orders, if commonly used, can be saved and used repeatedly to save time and money.
Fishbowl Inventory also allows manufacturers to keep track of inventory during every stage of manufacturing.
Warehouses are able to get up to date information about their inventory levels. Since they can establish re-order points for every product in the warehouse, Fishbowl will ensure that out-of-stock events are always avoided.
The software integrates with QuickBooks, Amazon, eBay, DropBox, Shopify, FedEx, Salesforce, Magento, UPS and other popular retail software.
Excel workbook
This tool is designed to compute optimum inventory level in a manufacturing environment based on customer service level, sales forecast, capacity utilization, and distribution channel. It can be used to estimate optimum level of pre-build stock, safety stock, in-transit stock and cycle stock by SKU [read more]
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The Supply Chain Fundamentals Series has 5 modules in all as below:
Module 1 - Forecasting - 73 Slides
Module 2 - Aggregate Planning - 28 Slides
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Module 4 - Scheduling - 43 Slides
Module 5 - Inventory Management - 69 Slides
The 5th Module [read more]
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About Shane Avron
Shane Avron is a freelance writer, specializing in business, general management, enterprise software, and digital technologies. In addition to Flevy, Shane's articles have appeared in Huffington Post, Forbes Magazine, among other business journals.
