Running a business requires a lot of effort, time, and resources. Before you started building your company, you must have known this and made yourself ready for all the things you have to do and achieve. Whether you’re an owner of a start-up or a large scale business, there are systems you need to consider and invest in. One of which is Inventory Management which is a simple way for a company to find, store, and keep track of its goods. Instead of using spreadsheets or ledgers to enter data by hand, you can use a cost-effective and highly reliable system that does it for you. The main reason to invest in an Inventory Management System is to find the right balance between having too much and too little stock.
To achieve this balance, you need to look at the trends in supply and demand on the market! Doing research helps keep inventory at the right level. No matter what kind of business you run or how big it is, you need to use an automated system with premier and branded software. Having Inventory Management in your business will help maximize employee productivity and will save your time and money.
Types of Inventory Management
There are various ways to manage inventory and businesses need to know exactly what they have in stock. If you don’t know what’s coming, it can be hard or even impossible to make decisions about what to buy and how to distribute it.
Periodic Inventory Management
This type helps evaluate stocks at set times. It is a physical process that helps figure out how much things cost to sell (COGS). Tracking your goods with a pen and paper is easy and doesn’t cost much, but it does have disadvantages:
- Doesn’t show the cost of goods sold or the balance of inventory at the end of a period
- When there isn’t a count, you have to guess the cost of the goods you sold. When a full count is done, this may need to be changed in big ways.
- Outdated inventory and scrap losses can’t be accounted for over a long period of time, so when a count is done, a big change will have to be made.
Even though there are a few problems with managing inventory regularly, many businesses do not have to spend much money but this strategy only works best for smaller businesses that don’t need to do large cycle counts to keep track of their inventory management.
Perpetual Inventory Management
When it comes to managing inventory, everything has to be updated. This type of inventory management has the benefit of giving up-to-date information about the number of items in stock and reduces the number of physical counts that need to be done. This system allows employees to save time and money as they don’t have to check on stock levels as often.
To consider this way of managing the stocks, businesses should think about the technology to use. This will work well if you use highly reliable software to provide a strong inventory management system.
However, there are few things that should be taken into consideration if you wish to use this type:
- This system is dependent on specialist software and hardware, so you will need to invest in cost-effective and branded software to get your money’s worth.
- System update is necessary.
- Incorrect scanning of products may ruin the inventory records, so you need to avoid these errors to prevent unmatched inventories.
Despite having drawbacks of this type, it would be a good idea to start looking for an innovative IT solutions provider that offers the premier software and allows you to manage complicated operations in your inventory.
Barcode Systems
Barcode systems are a common type of inventory management. These help organize and execute daily tasks faster while making them more accurate and efficient. When an employee scans a product in or out, the number of items in stock is automatically updated.
Most of these barcode systems also come with mobile scanners, which speed up the scanning process even more. Among its number of advantages are:
- Automatic updates to stock
- Improvements on reporting and paperwork
- Stock movement within and between warehouses
- Quick picking, packing, and shipping
- Quick scanning with mobile tools
- Less error caused by manual data encoding
Radio Frequency Identification Systems
Another type of many inventory management systems are RFID systems. It is digitally encoded data that helps keep track of stock and create a history of purchases and orders. With this system, items are scanned as they move around the warehouse using fixed readers. The scanners automatically add this information to the inventory system. The name for this type of RFID system is an “active” system. On the other hand, Passive RFID systems work like barcode systems which require the use of devices. Passive technology can only scan about 40 feet away, but active technology can surprisingly scan about 300 feet away.
However, there are some downsides of RFID tagging systems:
- It is more expensive than barcode systems
- When it comes to RFID tagging, interference is a problem
- Switching to RFID can be pricey because suppliers, customers, and transportation companies will need to have the right equipment.
- RFID tags can keep more data than barcodes, which can slow down servers that aren’t ready for it.
Whichever type of inventory management you prefer for your business, it is definitely a need that you have to start working on. Your business has to handle and manage your stocks accurately and efficiently regardless of the company size. To keep things moving quickly and precisely, boost your workplace productivity through investing in a reliable Inventory Management System. Quadrant Alpha offers branded and highly reliable software that your company can trust. Our automated systems let businesses achieve limitless opportunities and help employees focus on the greater aspects of the workplace rather than performing the repetitive tasks manually and traditionally.
Work with QA and experience innovative and guaranteed software for more successful operations! Contact us today to set a schedule for our Demo!