This article highlights the importance of managing inventories in a small business. Learn smart tips and techniques from Orderry to help your warehouse run better.
LONDON, June 6, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Inventory management is an essential part of any business operation as it keeps a track of products as they move from the stock to the store or repair shop. In order to maintain an efficient process for inventory control, it is important to be able to see what is available and what needs to be ordered. A warehouse management system gathers all these pieces of information and provides the data and reports that are needed for planning and decision making. In this article, you will learn how to organize accurate inventory tracking to avoid missed items, dead stock, and negative impact on your bottom line.
Benefits of Proper Inventory Management For Small Companies
When your warehouse is a mess, it becomes difficult to search for products, see accurate stock levels, and keep track of stock movements. Your employees don't understand where to look for items for customer orders and how to find the little spare part they need right now to do some repairs. As a result, it takes a long time to collect deliveries or provide services (that won't make your customers happier), the excess inventory grows, and potential sales decreases. To avoid all of these disasters you need to implement accurate inventory tracking even if you have a small stock. Once it is done, you will be able to quickly find out the balance of this or that product at any time.
Warehouse inventory accounting helps you optimize business processes and employee efficiency. It performs a number of important tasks including:
- Control of inventory levels. The main purpose of warehouse management is to make sure that the counted quantity of goods coincides with the actual quantity. This way, you won't need to check everything a hundred times before each sale.
- Effective planning of purchases. With the help of stock level and assortment analysis, you can predict the average number of future sales to restock on time and keep your stock moving.
- Less stress with stocktaking. When you have an organized warehouse, stock checks and picking items for delivery becomes much easier.
- Product catalog optimization. For a better product availability assessment, you can organize your stock by dividing goods into categories and groups. Each category can be stored in a separate location to make it easier for you to bundle orders and deliveries.
- Reducing errors and theft. Once you started collecting accurate warehouse accounting records, all postings, write-offs, and stock movements will be documented and displayed in the inventory management software you use. As a result, you'll reduce shortages, excess stock, thefts, and errors during sales.
- Better-organized warehouse space. Maintaining inventory tracking will help you find dead stock items that need to be written off or sold at a promotional price. You can also discover defective goods which are worth arranging a separate storage space for. At the end of the day, you'll know what is where.
- Increased employee efficiency. They no longer have to spend a lot of time searching for goods and picking orders. This will also help you increase your customer satisfaction.
As you see, there are plenty of benefits you will get from managing your warehouse in a smart way. For both small service companies and eCommerce businesses, it is important to use a good warehouse management system that will help business owners and retailers manage all the complex inventory processes. For example, Orderry is a cloud-based business management program that automates routine tasks in all areas of business operation. You can keep track of work orders, customer base, activities of sales, finances, inventory, employees, scheduling, and real-time analytics.
5 Tips For Organizing Your Stock
With the proper maintenance of warehouse records, it's easier to avoid conflicts, prevent fraud, and scale your business when customer demands grow. Here's a checklist on how to do it efficiently:
1. Think about your inventory management strategy. Ask yourself some questions to better understand what you need to do and how. Look closely at the inventory, storage methods, and workflow:
- What items are there?
- Which products are used most?
- Which items need to be put on the floor and which ones need to be on the shelves?
- How much room do you need for activities?
- What can you do to make it easier to find and use the goods you need?
2. Take care of the equipment. Buy handy shelving for boxes of different sizes, a barcode scanner, label printer, warehouse scales, mobile ladders, carts for transporting goods, etc. The amount of equipment depends on the specifics of your business. The point is to create the right conditions for the storage of goods and a comfortable environment for employees.
3. Involve people you trust. Decide who will be responsible for the safety of goods and assets, keeping accurate stock details, and preparing reports. This could be, for example, a warehouse manager.
4. Describe workflows. Employees need to know how to do stock checks, write-offs, and stock movements, according to which documents to issue the goods, what to do in case of shortages, how to deal with defective items, etc. For each process, it is necessary to prepare step-by-step instructions to reduce the number of unclear situations.
5. Provide convenient space planning. Keep your warehouse tidy and store items so that employees immediately know where to find them. You can use bin locations or simply place products of different categories separately. It's convenient to store small items using labels and add photos to your CRM system. This way, you won't get anything mixed up.
Crucial Factors in Choosing a Warehouse Management Solution
The choice of a particular program depends on the specifics of your business and the tasks you set. But here is a general list of criteria that you can rely on when looking for inventory management tools:
- Simple and user-friendly interface. The best inventory control software has an intuitive menu, flexible settings, and high loading speed. The simpler the software is, the faster your employees will get used to it.
- Functionality. Here is a minimum set of features you should look for:
- import and export of stock items
- posting, writing off, and moving
- convenient filter system to search for goods, documents, counterparties, and payments
- price tag and label printing
- purchase planning
- serial accounting and bin locations
- database of customers and suppliers
- employee access configuration
- completing a full and partial inventory count
- adding descriptions and photos of goods
- returns processing
- Analytics. The more types of reports the program helps you build, the more time you will save. Ideally, warehouse accounting software should generate at least the basic types of reports: assortment analysis, stock levels, and product turnover.
- Handy mobile apps. This is especially important for managers of several locations. You'll be able to control the performance of each warehouse on the go.
Final Thoughts
Well-organized inventory management is an essential need for any small business. Having an accurate inventory tracking of what you have on hand will allow you to effectively plan future growth. This will also help you avoid running out of popular products or purchasing too much. Automation makes warehouse management an easy task as it takes the guesswork out of the process. As a result, you will get better-planned sales, reduced inventory costs, and increased employee productivity.
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SOURCE Orderry
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