Inventory management requires continuous supervision and this can become challenging for SME business owners, who have multiple stores across locations. Their biggest problem is to oversee all inventory operations without being physically present at every factory and warehouse location. This created a need for the most effective inventory management tool for SMEs that provides improved inventory insight and control with a few simple steps.
In this blog, we will inform you about the best inventory management software for small businesses, free inventory management software, and the like.
Best Inventory Management Software for Small Businesses
Wondering if there are automated tools to help you fetch the inventory status of every item in your warehouse, whenever you need it? Here is a comprehensive list of the best inventory management software for small and medium-scale businesses:
Read More - Inventory Management: Ultimate Guide for SMEs
1. TranZact
Tranzact is a cloud-based online platform that provides an expert and integrated inventory management system for SMEs. It offers SME business owners higher inventory efficiency while reducing inventory costs. It also helps in timely planning of purchase by monitoring stock, to reduce order delays even by a single day!
Features
1. It provides fully automated and real-time inventory tracking facilities.
2. TranZact's inventory barcode scanning feature helps to monitor every inventory item easily.
3. Allows access and insight into multiple stores seamlessly.
4. Its business intelligence dashboard helps to visualize all business data and make informed decisions easily.
5. Helps to reduce mismatches between digital and physical stock reconciliation during internal audits.
Pros
1. TranZact offers a quick view of minimum and maximum stock levels.
2. It provides instant inventory access to manage reorder points before stock-out scenarios.
3. Its inventory module enables cost-effective and automated stock adjustment.
4. Also provides real-time inventory insights and vendor mapping to prevent production errors and order delays.
5. World-class data privacy and security, easy documentation and top-notch, proactive customer support.
6. It comes with Tally integration for accounting and offers 70+ reports, along with GST-compliant documentation.
2. Zoho Inventory
It's a cloud-based software for inventory management, best suited for small business retailers and e-commerce operators. It offers an inventory management system to help e-commerce businesses with sales on digital marketing platforms, namely Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, and eBay.
Features
1. The software's GST-enabled feature auto-populates GST details in required documents.
2. It helps companies with multi-channel selling requirements to sync inventory quantities.
3. It helps to monitor stock and automates order fulfilment.
Pros
1. Zoho Inventory offers barcode scanning to track inventory and provides analytics and reporting.
2. Provides accounting support for SMEs and e-commerce businesses.
Cons
1. Does not integrate inventory with other modules. 2. Not designed specifically for the manufacturing industry workflows.
3. Oracle NetSuite
Oracle provides an effective inventory tracking solution for SME businesses and individual proprietors.
Features
1. It integrates with different software providers and offers open APIs to develop new integrations.
2. It helps in inventory auditing and ensures multi-location fulfilment.
3. The software also helps with warehouse management and order management.
Pros
1. Detailed and real-time view of key suppliers.
2. Effective inventory management and ship floor performance metrics.
Cons
1. The software has limits on clients and users.
2. It's not compatible with mobiles.
4. Vyapar
It is an accounting and billing software and mobile application, offering inventory management solutions to SMEs and retailers.
Features
1. Vyapar offers inventory with barcode and vendor management solutions.
2. It also offers tax management and budgeting services.
Pros
1. Real-time business tracking via mobile and desktop.
2. The affordable pricing structure for small traders and wholesalers.
Cons
1. Not useful for the medium-scale manufacturing sector.
2. Inability to back up data on the cloud.
5. Tally Prime
It's an accounting and enterprise resource planning software with features like banking, payroll management and accounting.
Features
1. It provides you with advance stock summary and warehouse reports.
2. It supports determining how much product might be needed in the future
3. Provides stock ageing reports to make informed decisions on restocking products.
Pros
1. Suitable for retailers and traders requiring inventory management.
2. Provides effective tax management and accounting solutions.
Cons
1. Does not include all the modules required by manufacturing SMEs.
2. Business intelligence dashboards and real-time data functions are unavailable.
Read Inventory Management: TCS vs. TranZact Automation Benefits
What is Inventory Management Software?
An inventory management software helps track, record, and manage inventory inflow and outflow for businesses. It automates inventory-related procedures like alerting to maintain stock levels, providing current inventory status and more.
This software ensures you can track current inventory levels and identify raw materials needed for production planning and control. Modern inventory management systems can cut down on hardware costs and enhance accessibility.
Stock management software also lets you effectively and efficiently manage your inventory, preventing you from overstocking. Therefore, it increases productivity and saves costs by cutting down time spent on daily inventory effort, thereby decreasing human error and meeting customer expectations.
Key Features of Inventory Management Software
The key features of the software for inventory management are as follows:
Simplifies inventory workflows
With the measurement and categorization of existing products in stock and live inventory reports, inventory management software simplifies otherwise complex and time-consuming inventory workflows.
Inventory tracking
Inventory management tools solve one of the biggest inventory challenges of product tagging and tracking inventory. Automated stock control, reports and audits help to keep track of inventory in real-time.
Mobile app
An expert inventory management software would come with an easily accessible mobile application. This will allow you to track inventory, view customer order information, and scan barcodes from anywhere.
Sales integration
This integration enables you to update inventory in real-time based on your product sales. This allows your inventory team to automatically update records on the tool for inventory management when a product is ordered, or delivered. This also helps to notify you, when you don't have adequate product supply.
Automated reordering
Reordering items can be tricky since the repeat order must be placed before the existing product is entirely out of stock. At the same time, you want to avoid instances of oversupply.
Thus, the reordering feature, when automated, can be very helpful, especially in the case when you deal with unique or seasonal products.
Reporting features
Detailed inventory reports are useful as you can look up your sales history, and current and historic stock levels. It will also give you an insight into the most popular products and which items were a smaller hit than estimated.
Benefits of Inventory Management Software
While discussing which software is recommended for inventory management, it helps to know the benefits of inventory management software for small and medium-sized businesses; let's look at them here:
Improved accuracy
Effective inventory management informs you about the products in stock and what is not available at the moment. With this inventory data, you can order the necessary products to fulfil customer demands.
Increased productivity
The right software ensures easy inventory management, saving time and duplications. Thereby, inventory automation removes the chance of human error and increases productivity.
Inventory insights
You can identify sales trends, and get insights into the highest-used inventory including raw materials and data about sold goods. Inventory management software also helps in tracking recalled or returned products.
Cost saving
Automating inventory helps you to save inventory overhead costs, and cut down losses arising from raw material procurement delays due to stockouts.
Read Benefits of Inventory Management and Systems
When Should You Implement Inventory Management Software for Your Business?
When you want to manage everyday inventory operations without over-ordering or creating shortages in your manufacturing business, you should implement software for inventory management in India.
It helps to free up excessive time and effort spent by you and your team on repetitive inventory management tasks, with a smart way of managing inventory. It's also beneficial to adopt free inventory management software for small manufacturing businesses when you have zero inventory control and overview, which stops you from maximizing resource potential and growing your business.
Read Best Free Inventory Management Software in 2024.
Having a lean inventory with a stock management tool makes your manufacturing processes more efficient in the long run. You can explore free inventory management software for small businesses, and decide if it suits your business needs.
How Can Inventory Management Software Help Your Business?
One of the most important ways in which inventory management software helps your business is by ensuring that your production teams have all the necessary resources and materials required for production, at any given time.
An inventory tool assures such seamless inventory optimization, without leading to excess stock or under-stock situations. An inventory management software integrated with production, sales, purchases and production can help you to track your inventory seamlessly.
It shows the stock item's current location and movement while sharing live updates on consumption data. This helps you to fix recording schedules accurately and also helps to monitor product demand and align current stock levels. Advanced inventory management software saves costs in several ways by preventing unnecessary purchases, forecasting inventory for seasonal buys and managing multiple warehouses.
With seamless inventory management, your business can gain significant productive value and deliver improved customer service.
Inventory Management at Its Best With TranZact!
Buying, storing and processing inventory effectively is immensely crucial for manufacturing companies. The best software for inventory management must fulfill these requirements, in the fastest and most error-free way possible.
Implement inventory management software for your business with TranZact and leave your inventory-related problems behind!
Under How Does TranZact Help You Manage Inventory Efficiently?
TranZact helps to gain a complete inventory overview at one glance and also helps to streamline sales management within the business, by monitoring orders in real-time.
Advanced barcoding and live inventory valuation enable inventory tracking across stores with ease and agility. By providing automated features to manage inventory and purchases seamlessly as required, TranZact simplifies inventory hassles and improves business productivity year after year!
FAQs on Best Inventory Management Software for Small Business
1. How to manage inventory in a small business?
To effectively manage inventory in a small business, business owners must consider implementing centralized inventory control measures and leverage inventory management software for streamlined tracking and data-driven decision-making.
2. Which software is recommended for inventory management?
TranZact is recommended as the best inventory management software, to efficiently manage buying, storing, and processing inventory for manufacturing companies. TranZact simplifies inventory hassles with features like inventory overview, real-time order monitoring, barcode scanning, and automated inventory management. It improves business productivity, and streamlines sales management.
3. What are the 4 types of inventory management systems?
The four types of inventory management systems are periodic review systems, perpetual inventory systems, just-in-time (JIT) systems, and material requirements planning (MRP) systems.
4. How much does inventory software cost for a small business?
An effective, cloud-based inventory software for a small business may cost between Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 1,00,000 or more depending upon several factors. This cost can vary depending on factors such as the features, scalability, and provider.
5. Which is the best software to track inventory?
TranZact is a cloud-based automation tool that offers an integrated inventory management system for SMEs, linking inventory operations with core business processes. With over 65+ reports, seamless GST e-invoicing integration, and enhanced production efficiency, TranZact is considered the top choice for small businesses seeking an effective inventory system.
6. Is inventory management software scalable for growing small businesses?
Yes, inventory management software is designed to be scalable and can accommodate the growing needs of small businesses. TranZact is a fully digitized inventory solution that is built to grow along with your business. It provides real-time inventory insights to enable you to maximize inventory control and oversight anytime, anywhere.
7. How can small businesses keep track of inventory for free?
TranZact is designed specifically for SME manufacturers and provides all its base features for a lifetime free period. Small businesses can sign up for free, try TranZact and upgrade only when they are ready.
8. What happens if you don't keep track of inventory?
If you ignore inventory tracking and management, you might lose out on sales due to inventory shortage or have massive amounts of unused stock. Both these scenarios are detrimental to your business growth.
