Key Features to Look Out For In Inventory Management Solution

An inventory is the backbone of any business. It is responsible for sustainability, be it in manufacturing, oil & gas, or the retail sector. Taking the right inventory management solution can be a herculean task, especially when done manually, which limits productivity and hampers data accuracy.

Consequently, business owners are paying more attention to digital solutions to handle their inventory efficiently, reduce time, and maximise productivity. However, knowing the right Inventory Management solution to use can be confusing if you have limited information on the key features that apply specifically to your business.

In this article, we will examine what an Inventory Management solution is, the key features to look out for, and its key benefits to businesses.

Let’s get started.

What is an Inventory Management Solution?

An Inventory Management solution is a piece of software that tracks stocks or inventory from production to storage, manufacturing, and distribution. It involves tracking the purchase of raw materials, the manufacturing of the product, and its supply to customers. An inventory can either be a liability or an asset. It becomes a liability when it’s not sold at the scheduled date resulting in damage to goods and waste of funds. On the flip side, inventory can be an asset when it is sold at the designated time, earning the company more income and saving resources.

A good Inventory Management solution guarantees maximum profit, free flow of communication, and accurate data. You can boast of a good inventory turnover by choosing an inventory management solution like Hidden Brains’ Warehouse and Inventory Management Solution with features suitable for your operations. It’s important that every business considers its organisational structure when choosing a good inventory solution.

Let’s take a look at these features.

Key Features to Look Out For in Our Inventory Management Solution

Our Warehouse and Inventory Management solutions have several features that enable you to manage your business inventory and enhance operational efficiency.

Features in Inventory Management Solution are:

Tagging, Barcoding, and Batching

Tagging is the process of attaching labels to a product to monitor the distribution of that product. An inventory tag contains a serial number, the manufacturing company, and a barcode. When the barcode is scanned, you can effectively manage your products from production to distribution without errors. Thus, it becomes easy for employees to identify the number of items available from any location.

In the same light, batching helps to group inventories with similar properties. It enables you to track the expiry date of products and trace defective products to the location they were manufactured. With a stock-keeping unit (SKU) number, it becomes easier to manage business operations.

Smart Notifications and Alerts

A lot can go wrong during the production and transportation of inventory. Thus, you need to ask yourself: how can my company stay abreast of warehouse and inventory operations? Well, a smart notification or alert can help you handle this. An inventory alert notifies you of the location of goods to track their condition and safety effectively. You can set notifications on goods in high demand and those that need restocking including low-selling goods, new arrivals, and reorder alerts. With all these in place, managing the supply chain becomes easier.

Fleet Management

Managing fleets, especially for large-scale businesses is not an easy feat. Accurate data is necessary to effectively manage your company fleet. The Warehouse and Inventory system provides reliable data on vehicle location and drivers’ behaviour to ensure maximum safety. Fleet management gives insight into fuel consumption so that business owners can map out better plans for optimising your delivery process. In addition, with information on the number of fleets and inventory demand, you can acquire more fleets to maximise operational efficiency.

Stock Management

Proper stock management is important for business growth. Overstocking ties up cash and leads to financial loss in the case of expired products, while understocking would result in unsatisfied customers. This is why striking a balance is necessary. A good inventory solution helps create that balance by providing accurate data on stock availability and increasing demands. You can adopt different methods of stock control such as the Just-in-time method (order stock only when there is a demand), the First-in-first-out method (ship out stocks produced first), and the Economic Order Quantity (calculate the exact quantity of stock required).

Systematic Reporting

Our inventory management solution gives comprehensive inventory reports on your purchase order, stock reorder, shipment report, forecasting report, performance report, and the price of inventories. These reports enable managers to make better decisions and contingency plans for emergency purposes. For employees, easy access to detailed reports simplifies the job and increases collaboration among various departments.

Multiple Order Completion

When a company starts to grow, handling multiple orders becomes difficult. Companies have to deal with the process of delivering inventory at the requested time which could result in a major problem when there is no inventory management solution. Hidden Brains’ Warehouse and Inventory Solution optimise the order process from placement of an order, picking, packaging, and shipment, to tracking of inventory. With accurate order data, businesses can fulfil customers’ orders and adequately plan order routing.

Omni-channel Operations

Omni-channel is a marketing term used to describe how businesses operate different channels to provide a better shopping experience for customers. These days, customers want to access a brand product without breaking a sweat. For you to make shopping easy for your customers, you must operate multiple channels like physical stores, mobile apps, or websites, which makes it easier for your customers to place their orders. You can track customers’ orders across multiple channels with an inventory management solution.

Key Benefits of an Inventory Management Solution

There are notable benefits of Inventory Management you should consider to run an efficient and profitable venture. No business owner would invest in any venture that is not profitable in the long run. Inventory management empowers you to take charge of your inventories to avoid risk. Its key benefits are outlined below.

Reduces Operational Costs

A good Inventory Management solution constantly informs warehouse managers of the number of inventories available so that necessary action would be taken to ensure they get supplied to avoid damage which could alter the smooth running of your business. Keeping an inventory in the warehouse accumulates extra cost especially when there is a delay in delivery. Running a good inventory management solution makes the process error-free, thus, reducing unnecessary expenses.

Provides Accurate Data

Manual inventory accounting can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and prone to error. This is why a good Inventory Management solution is necessary. An Inventory Management solution provides accurate inventory analysis on product demands using techniques like ABC analysis. The ABC analysis ranks products based on the most demanded to the least sold out. With this, you would be able to make proper planning on the inventory that should be prioritized and the ones that need to be reduced. Inventory can be arranged for easy access at any given time. Also, it gives comprehensive data on inventory location to ensure proper tracking and safety of items. Employees can locate an inventory and know the number available using a barcode. Furthermore, it provides financial data for you to manage payroll and make adjustments in production.

Improved Customer Service

Customers are the backbone of any business enterprise. Without your customers, you would run at a loss, which is why you need to improve your business operations to ensure your customers get maximum satisfaction. A good Inventory Management solution supplies data on inventories to prevent stock-outs to prevent customers’ displeasure. To satisfy your customers, you should ensure that your inventory is well-arranged and available for shipping. To add to this, you can track customers’ preferences and make changes in production through the feedback received.

Saves Time

In business, time is money. You should have an optimised inventory solution that can integrate data into a centralised database to increase efficiency. An optimised inventory solution eradicates the stress of counting inventories manually by providing accurate data on production, storage, distribution, and a comprehensive list of inventory in the warehouse. These data also help you to optimise your warehouse to prevent the damage of goods, loss, or delay in supply. Imagine the procedure of inputting inventories on spreadsheets; it will take loads of time crosschecking errors to ensure the data is reliable. These could be prevented by a good Inventory Management solution.

Better Decision-Making

Business owners are faced with making decisions for the growth of their business, which is why a good inventory solution can help you to decide on the inventory to produce more by providing data on the highest-selling product. Through demand forecasting, you can predict future demands for your products and improve your supply chain to meet these demands. As customers’ taste change due to new trends, you can make better marketing strategies, improve the quality of goods, and increase efficiency with demand forecasting.

As you have read, inventory is vital to every business, and yours is not an exception. An inventory management solution would reduce human errors while providing accurate data, amongst many other benefits as outlined above.

Take a step today and consult us at Hidden Brains. Our inventory solution helps to optimise your supply chain, yield maximum profit, and increase operational efficiency.

Check it out here: https://www.hiddenbrains.africa/warehouse-inventory-management-solutions.html.

You can also contact us via email at [email protected] to get started.