How to do effective inventory management for small business?
Modern technological advances certainly revolutionize the way of business conduct today, there are lots of inventory organization ideas and valuation methods to use. But the best way to keep inventory is definitely to utilize all-in-one software like ORTY, which would make managing the supply chain quite simple and effective at the same time.
With the custom-designed soft you wouldn’t have to worry about how to do inventory or how to manage stock as the in-built functions will provide the support your business needs. Manual inventory has been steadily sinking into oblivion while automation proves itself to be a beneficial and worthy tool. And using the supply chain management software will help track the whole route of the product and generate cost.
Why monitoring inventory is important?
Inventory is one of the major pillars which keep your business up and running. ny business needs it, whether you provide services or you have a small gift shop. Accounting helps to keep under control the main work of your business, because if there is no product, and no sales. For example, the store with gifts, how convenient to look at the screen and already know how much is in stock, without looking for a position in the warehouse. For this there is a gift shop pos system, your salesman will always have the administrative information on the balances. We have singled out established reasons for how important keeping track of inventory is.
1.Losing profits and trust.
In case you are not keeping track of the stock, it is easy to run out. That situation poses a double threat because you may not be able to deliver the promised amount and lose the sale but what is more, you are going to forfeit the loyalty and confidence to your company.
2.Smart investments.
Being a person of business, you should understand the importance of capital input into the stock. Constant demand monitoring and understanding the seasonal and circumstantial quantity for the products needed is a significant part of the job with the inventory.
You can fetch out slow-moving products and label them to take other strategies in sales without buying more. Thus, freeing up money to invest in something else like new products.
3.Building reports.
On the different levels of inventory management, we gather various types of data to receive a clear picture of the market, profits, sales, and prices. For example, in ORTY you can easily build reports on real-time data and track the product’s asset value in retrospect.
4.Troubleshooting.
Monitoring inventory day and night you will be able to see problems straight away and thus resolve them at the very source quickly and efficiently. People can make mistakes on the amounts, orders, or schedule and many more things can easily go wrong in the working process. The most productive way of fixing it is to tightly maintain the inventory system and be able to see the stock information online.
5.Suspicious activity.
No one wants to discover suspicious operations conducted by the team of people they have hired. But it wouldn’t hurt to be vigilant and aware of the activities performed, especially if there is no need to spend any time searching through bulks of data as the software has already done all the work for you. In ORTY, for example, there is a dashboard that shows data on suspicious activities online.
How to keep track of inventory?
There exist many asset-management and valuation methods on how to do inventory and depending on the size and purpose of your business you choose the most relevant one.
Together with your team and with the ORTY software do more in less time. This is a new era in the management of inventories, where you can easily communicate with your staff, be aware of the numbers and state of your business while being anywhere in the world.
ORTY inventory system empowers you to:
Track stock level
- Add all your stock (ingredients, semi-products, subproducts) by importing them in bulk or manually.
- View available stock, track the freshness, set reminders, and add a threshold to product quantity.
- Working simultaneously with your team conducting the inventory.
Сollect data in one place
- Mobile app and web accessibility will allow your employees to manage reserves from any device and any location.
- Multiple establishments can be connected to one IMS.
- Provide full or elected access for each employee.
- A detailed inventory is always available in mobile mode, with autosaving.
Build detailed analytics
- Get the detailed history of transactions for each ingredient.
- Control all of the conducted operations.
- Manage all the analytical data in one place.
- Use one of the best cost accounting methods (FEFO).
How to improve inventory management – tips for your business
Probably every business owner wants a simple inventory system for small business or an enterprise that would work like a clock and would help with the automation of routine tasks.
We have gathered a few points on how you may optimize the resources:
1.Away with the manual count.
Many small businesses still rely on people physically counting the products. This way, you mostly get mistakes, miscalculations, and inefficient time use. Switching to the software for inventory management is a great solution to be more precise, time-wise, and efficient.
2.Have the stock at hand.
Every owner probably wants to find this golden middle, to have all the types of products customers want and not have left-over stock. However improbable that situation is, try to follow the “minimum stock level” rule. That way, you could have some of the product at hand and have the necessary time to resupply.
3.Be in the thick of activities.
Set, collect and analyze the fresh data. Try to be online at all times, keeping an eagle eye on statistics and numbers. Build reports and use them wisely to proactively find the problems and solve them as quickly as possible.
Be on one page with your team and see their working process from a detached point of view.
4.Go to the cloud.
The technical side of the business is impactful. Keeping the data in the cloud is more secure and convenient. There is no need to carry the computer everywhere you go for accessing the information. All you need to do is install an app or go to the browser on any type of device. This would lighten the work process manifold, and you would not lose valuable records with cloud backups.
Kaitlin Keefer
Kaitlin is an editor at Square where she covers everything from how small businesses can start, run, and grow, to how enterprise companies can use tools and data to become industry leaders.