As an SME manufacturer dealing in tangible goods, effective inventory management is a crucial component of your business operations. Knowing how much stock is available in the warehouse is only one aspect of this. In addition to that, there are several fine nuances one needs to supervise, to ensure seamless inventory management. When you have an expert inventory management software at your fingertips, you can better track and organize your stock. You can also manage purchases seamlessly as required, with real-time indications of low stock across all your stores.
With an inventory management tool, manufacturing business owners can easily manage orders and related requirements. They can also address problems like product overstocking or outages. Effective management of inventory is challenging at the outset, but it will boost your company's profitability and increase the value you provide to customers.
Therefore, in this blog, we have identified which software is recommended for inventory management and why SMEs must adopt it now.
Which Software Is Recommended for Inventory Management?
Maintaining stock at a profitable level is a typical challenge for Indian manufacturers. SMEs frequently find themselves overspending on excess inventory as a result of inadequate management of inventory. The best inventory management software provides seamless transactions whether customers are making purchases in-person or online.
With TranZact, you can track all the goods and raw materials in your warehouse with ease. Due to its smooth integration with Tally, Excel, and numerous other solutions, it emerges as the best inventory software for a small business.
It offers an accurate approach to determining product prices and overseeing inventory movement. Moreover, it provides capabilities for automated, real-time updates, barcode scanning, and in-depth inventory reports for SME business owners. TranZact’s user-friendly interface enables you to quickly digitize end-to-end inventory processes, making it the best software for inventory management.
What Is Inventory Management Software?
An inventory management software is an automated tool used by businesses to track sales and lower their total carrying costs. The software tracks goods as they go from a vendor to a warehouse, then from one warehouse store to another, and finally to a retail facility or directly to a consumer.
With the best inventory management software, you can keep track of all incoming and outgoing stock items in real-time and get notified when there is a shortage.
Only using a spreadsheet to keep track of all inventory operations can become very challenging for SMEs. An inventory management software is key for connecting inventory information to other data platforms that your company uses.
While ‘inventory management’ may sound like a straightforward way to keep track of what you have in stock, a small business inventory management software actually goes far deeper. A minimum of one other back-end office system, such as your production planning, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) programme or materials planning system, should be integrated with the software.
In order to know the value of the items you have in inventory for accounting and other important purposes, an inventory management system should be able to do the following:
- Track stock items through acquisition, sales, and other processes
- Locate them across one or more stores
- Price the inventory
When Do You Need to Use Inventory Management Software?
The most important times to use an inventory management software are when tracking multiple item movements, monitoring stock levels and determining pricing. You can save time and gain complete visibility into your purchase planning, and fulfillment operations by using a cloud-based solution for managing your inventory.
Some businesses may use a Point of Sale (POS) system with inventory functionality. However, to manage the assembly process, manufacturing companies need an optimum software to track sales and update all channels with real-time inventory status.
Due to financial constraints, small business owners are reluctant to invest in inventory management software. But with TranZact, you can sign up for free and explore the software’s expert inventory management functionalities to help you cut down on time and minimize revenue loss. You can upgrade only when you want to access advanced features in the software.
Importance of Inventory Management Software
Due to the inter-connection of inventory with all core processes in a business, many firms frequently feel pressured to overstock their shelves. This results in things going bad, loss of money spent on them and wastage of resources like stockroom space. On the other hand, understocking can result in a lot of disgruntled customers and delayed delivery.
Both situations could be disastrous for a company. In order to satisfy anticipated demand, it is essential to manage your inventory optimally so that you can fill orders promptly, keep warehousing costs in check, and stock up the right amount of goods.
By using a free inventory management software like TranZact, you can view your stock levels in a hassle-free and quick manner. It is also a simple way to keep track of the process stage that each item in your inventory is currently in.
Dynamic market trends are necessitating the need for an inventory management software to reduce manual effort and enable increased cost-effectiveness.
Key Functions of Inventory Management Software
An inventory management software will assist you in streamlining and automating fundamental inventory processes so that you can concentrate on growing your business without constantly worrying about inventory control. The following are key functions of efficient inventory management software:
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Enhanced productivity and efficiency by saving significant time in printing shipping labels, controlling the stock process, dispatching orders, and updating the listing.
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Increased profitability by monitoring excess stock and saving working capital.
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Multi-level stock management to prevent incidents of understock or overstock as manual maintenance is time-consuming.
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Easy inventory management by making well-informed purchase decisions.
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Tracking low stock levels and automating the re-ordering process.
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Better quality management to identify delays in shipment.
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Enhanced analysis and oversight with automated inventory reports.
A cloud-based software for inventory control aids in better communication among different business departments. Such seamless inter-departmental communication makes it simpler to determine when to restock, and which client orders have been dispatched, leading to enhanced customer experiences.
Benefits of Inventory Management Software
In addition to saving precious business time, there are several other benefits that your business gains, when you choose an effective inventory management software. They are as follows:
- Minimized errors thanks to reduced manual work
- Enhanced effectiveness
- Improved inventory cycles
- Reduced labor, insurance, and transportation costs
- Higher profits at lower costs
- Enhanced customer experience
- Data security
- Better insights into sales trends
- Reduced static and aged inventory
In this manner, an effective tool for inventory management enables you to determine optimum break-even points, accurate estimates of profitability, along with identification of bottle-neck operational problems.
These are only a few of the reasons why you should choose the best software for your company to track inventory.
Next, let’s understand the costing of an inventory software, and other add-on features that differentiate an ordinary inventory tool from an exceptional one!
How Much Does Inventory Management Software Cost?
The following factors affect the cost of inventory management software:
- Number of people who need access to the system
- If it’s a cloud-based or an on-premises solution
- If you're installing an all-in-one inventory and production system, or only an inventory solution
- Whether you need to link it with any other systems that are already in place
- Any requests for particular features
A majority of inventory management tools base their costs on various factors like volume of orders, size of the business, scope of locations required to be covered, etc.
But with TranZact, you get all the capabilities of an advanced inventory management software at a fraction of the conventional cost. Moreover, you can sign up for free, explore all the core inventory management features of the platform and upgrade only when you’re ready.
TranZact – Best Free Inventory Management System
Due to the dispersed storage of your raw materials, keeping track of all that inventory can seem burdensome. This is especially true if you're still using Excel or any other traditional tool. By upgrading to an intuitive inventory management software such as TranZact, you can access real-time inventory updates about shortages and stock usage, on the go.
It empowers accurate automation of inventory operations and documentation processes, making real-time inventory tracking incredibly simple.
TranZact’s highly-customizable Business Intelligence dashboard, equips users to keep a tab on all inventory activities, in addition to other business operations seamlessly. This enables data-driven decision-making and precise analysis with real-time data.
Transform Your Inventory Management With TranZact
No business wants to spend all of its time managing its inventory. The best inventory management software for your small business is one that accommodates your purchases, sales, production requirements, and integrates this with the inventory practice of the business.
It's critical to evaluate the software based on the unique requirements of your business, your inventory valuation approach, and emerging marketplace dynamics.
While small manufacturing businesses are typically adept at multitasking, quicker to adapt to change, and flexible in their business operations, they still require sophisticated, secure and supportive inventory management software for their everyday inventory operations.
TranZact is a comprehensive business digitization tool, especially designed for SME manufacturing businesses. With the help of this cloud-based platform, over 10,000 Indian SMEs have digitized their end-to-end business process, from client inquiries to shipment and invoicing.
It streamlines inventory management by offering customized features that are simple to use and consume by everyone in the team, empowering your business to scale!
FAQs
1. What is inventory management?
Inventory management is a strategy for maintaining the appropriate inventory, in the required quantity at the correct time, with the right inventory cost. When done well, firms may maximize sales while lowering the expense of carrying excess inventory. By leveraging effective inventory management, you can monitor your stock in real-time to speed up inventory operations.
2. What are the types of inventory management?
Businesses often adopt one of following two inventory management techniques:
- Periodic inventory management: In this method, inventory data is updated at defined intervals.
- Perpetual inventory management: With this method, business owners have immediate access to inventory information.
Instantaneous stock level updates such as this, provided by a cloud-based inventory management software like TranZact, enable manpower and time savings, generating greater returns on investment.
3. What is the best way to keep track of inventory?
It's not always simple to keep track of everything your business buys or sells. Therefore, using a reliable and user-friendly inventory management software is the best approach to monitor your inventory.
With TranZact’s modern inventory management module, you can automate time-consuming, error-prone processes, and receive live notifications, useful inventory analysis and improved traceability with barcoding functionalities and more!
