Inventory Tracking

In this site we discuss why your business needs Inventory Tracking, how it can help grow your business and what to look for when getting ready to make your purchase..   


No matter how large or small your business is, Inventory Tracking can help make the complex and time consuming tasks more manageable for your business.


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To be successful in today’s business environment, a company must be able to perform certain fundamentals accurately and efficiently. These fundamentals include asset management, human resources management, financial analysis and inventory tracking, among others. Inventory tracking, the subject in this article, is the collection and dissemination of product data, supplier information, shipping requirements and stock room data. A properly functioning inventory tracking system will provide employees and managers with the accurate and timely information they require.

Mastering all of these fundamentals is nearly impossible for the small business owner. The owner is usually spread so thin that he is forced to work long, stressful hours just to try to stay ahead of the curve. These owners are so consumed by the front end of the business, as they should be, that they have little time or inclination to manage the behind the scene activities well. This stress and burden only increases as the business grows. Soon the owner gets so overwhelmed with these back door activities that he finds himself choosing between important tasks, not able to complete them all. What a far cry from the dream most business owners have when they start their businesses; good pay, short hours, no boss, etc. Things sure didn’t work out that way!

So, what is to be done about it? IF you have a small business, with only a few items to track, you may not have these problems. If you do anything you probably just keep a ledger of your inventory and record items like product description, location, stock on hand, etc. You may even use a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel to record this information. With this program you can enter, sort and print your information as you need it. But as you grow you find that your needs have changed. All of a sudden you have dozens of products to track and instead or one supplier you have several to account for. Now is probably the time to implement an Inventory Tracking System.

There are many types of Inventory Tracking systems on the market today. Some are stand alone packages that integrate accounting functions with inventory management and sales processes. Other systems are more narrowly focused but provide more customization and the ability to mold the system to the way you do business. In any case, your system should include at least a few basic features. Automated data collection is the first thing I look for. Usually this is in the form of a bar coding system that feeds data into your software package at each step of your process. Another time saver is the ability of your software package to interface with your suppliers to make the ordering process easier and more efficient.

An efficient and well integrated inventory management system will provide you and your employees the information you need in a real time without a lot of extra effort. The ability to automatically collect the necessary information at each step of your process will give you the time to focus on the kinds of things an owner should, like customer satisfaction, new product introductions and marketing. These are the activities that will make your business grow and prosper once you have your fundamentals, like inventory tracking, in place. 

In the beginning it was easy to keep track of your inventory. You didn’t have enough inventory to worry about! Besides, you were spending a lot of time developing your business. You were talking to customers, setting up suppliers and planning advertising and marketing campaigns. Most of that ‘back office’ stuff was time consuming but not overly complex or difficult yet. Most of your tracking systems at that time were just kept in your head. Now, something is changing. Your business is growing. You are adding products and suppliers to take advantage of your expanding customer base. All of a sudden those pesky yet simple back office tasks got more time consuming and more complicated. You are spending so much time trying to figure out where your products are or when they are arriving that you are neglecting the activities that caused your business to grow in the first place. Something has to change. You need to put systems in place to help you manage the increased flow of information.
You need to be able to get information when you need it without dropping what you’re doing. You’re tired of making phone calls or searching the stockroom for a product you think you have. You think maybe the employees are stealing from you! You need to be able to predict when you need to order products so they arrive in time to sell. You need to be able to find the product once it’s sold. Most of all, you need to be able to manage this every increasing amount of data that is overwhelming you every day. You know that if you can put a system in place that will deal with all of this; you will be able to concentrate on the things that make your business successful.


An Inventory Management Software package can do all of this and more! You will have the ability to automate things that either took way too much time to accomplish or that you just never got around to doing. Things like bar coding for example. How cool would it be to be able to know everything about your products without having to input mounds of data into your computer? Bar coding will allow you to access current information, real time, without any extra effort. Just scan your product at each step of your process and you will know everything you need to know about it.


Adding new products will be as easy as scanning a new bar code into your system. Many Inventory Management Software applications will also allow you to integrate with the other systems in your company. Imagine not having to enter the same information over and over again into your computer. Some systems will provide you with the option of linking with your suppliers to automate the ordering and billing process. Others will allow you to integrate with your accounting system. All of your systems can work together to provide you with the kind of timely information you only dreamt about!


From simple software packages that track inventory levels to complicated ones that tie all of your systems together; there is an inventory Management Software program that’s right for you. There are several things to carefully consider when purchasing a new Inventory Management Software package. Will the software conform to my way of doing business, or will I have to conform to the way it wants to do business? Will it integrate with the other computer systems I use to run my company? Will the software package be supported in the future and will its’ features and capabilities grow as I grow? Picking the right Inventory Management Software package can lay the ground work for your business’ efficient and profitable future.

 
 
 

If you want your business to expand, you have to know where your inventory stands. It is essential to keep a well structured inventory. To know when products arrive, where they are in your shop or your warehouse, when they are bought and when you need to restock them is key. Inventory tracking is the best way to accomplish these small business tasks. Tracking your products also adds a safety measure to prevent lost items. It is very discouraging to think that an employee or a customer may steal things, but it unfortunately things like that happen. When you track your inventory, you will know when things go missing.

So many businesses fail, not because the idea was bad or the dream wasn't big enough, but because once it got started, things quickly got out of hand. When a business is unable to accommodate its growth it dies. Any business, small or large, has to have something to sell. Even if you only have one item to sell or one service to provide, you need to know where items come from, how much you invested in them, how much you sold them for, where and when they sold, who they are sold to (keeping track of your customers means repeat business), how they were bought, etc.

The average small business has over a dozen items to sell and the best way to manage those sales is to track the inventory. This can be done in several ways. You can do it by hand, taking the name of the item for sale, documenting where you got it, how much you paid for it, where you put it, when it expires (if it has an expiration date), when it sells, how much it sells for, etc. This process can be tedious and is prone to human error, especially when the inventory expands. Another method of tracking your inventory is to start a spread sheet on a plain old PC or Mac. This isn't too bad as you are less likely to misplace sheets of paper, cross things off lists by accident, etc. But you still have to spend a lot of time at the computer and we all know that time is money.

A better method of tracking inventory is to use a coding system of some kind. As sales are made, a simple code is entered and numbers are deducted from the total inventory letting you know when you are low on something. You can bar-code products to scan them into a computer and have a software program do all the hard stuff for you. Even better still is using that bar-code to track the product from point A to point Z.

Inventory tracking is a key component of any business. Knowing where your inventory is every step of the way allows you to better interact with the consumer and make sales. You may think that it isn't necessary for your business, but once you begin to track your inventory, you will be wondering how you ever managed without it.

So you’ve decided to purchase a new Inventory Management Software package. You’re through with the constant bombardment of information and not being able to find what you need when you need it. You’re tired of running out of stock and having to tell your customer to come back. Great! Now what? What should you consider when purchasing a new system? You should really evaluate four different criteria before making your decision. You should consider the computer hardware and operating system it will run on, how many users will need to access the system, what other systems will it need to be interfaced with and how flexible will my new inventory management system be? Price will also be a determining factor.

Your new Inventory Management Software will need to be compatible with your current computer hardware and operating system. Check to see what operating system the potential new software runs on. Most of the systems on the market today primarily run on the Microsoft Windows platform. There are several versions of this operating system so make sure you compare the software with what you own. For example, if you system is running Windows XP, but the Inventory Management Software requires Windows vista, you will need to upgrade your operating system. This could also necessitate the upgrade of your computer hardware since Windows Vista has different requirement from Windows XP.

You also need to consider how many different people (users) need to access the new system and from what locations. If more than one person will use the system (at the same time), then you will need to install a computer network in your business. A network allows different people to communicate with each other and share information as well as things like printers and scanners. You will net a network version of your Inventory Management Software and one user license for each person in your company that you want to access the system.

Now that you’ve addressed the infrastructure requirements, you can begin to look at the various features you require in your system. You will need to consider the need for bar coding systems and printers. This is usually an accessory that is sold separately from the software but is a vital component for improving your efficiency in collecting information. Also review your need for other potentially integrated functions like accounting systems or point of sale processes that can be a part of your overall system. Finally evaluate how flexible the software is. Are you going to have to change the way you do business in order to make use of a particular system? Or is the software flexible enough to allow you operate the business the way you want to?

A new Inventory Management Software package can greatly improve your overall business processes and make the collection and dissemination of your valuable business information easier and more accurate than ever before. External factors such as the type of existing computer and network hardware and software may have a large impact on the total cost of implementation. So make sure that you have considered these factors thoroughly. Finally make sure you buy from a company that has been around for awhile and will be able to support your new system now and into the future. If you follow these basic steps you should be able to make the correct selection for your business.