This time of year you hear a lot of chatter about “new” stuff. It seems like the most popular slogan during the month of January is “New Year, New You” but new isn’t always better. This year you should resolve to make your company better. In our upcoming posts we’ll talk a lot about process improvement and how it can impact your small business. Today, we’d like to discuss ways that improved organization can have a positive impact on your small business and your bottom line. Stockpile, the free online inventory solution for small business, is just one way to improve your organization.
It’s true in life and in business, you can’t use what you can’t find. Knowing what resources you have and where they are is key to being able to utilize them effectively. If you’ve ever tried to find something in someone else’s space (be it their home or their office) you’ve noticed that different people tend to keep things in different areas. The place that you deem most likely to house the scissors, tape, pencils, etc might be several drawers over from where they actually are. At home this generally isn’t a problem because your family and friends learn where you keep things. In the office these differences can be more problematic. Again, your employees will learn where the items they use most often are located but what about the seldom used supplies? How will they know that you even have a particular item on hand if they don’t know where to look for it? This is where your organizational skills can really pay off. Providing a list of seldom used supplies and their locations can keep business running smoothly even if you aren’t around. Whether this is a physical list or an online one, having this information readily available can really benefit everyone. As you are making this list you may also find unnecessary duplicates or some missing items that you should have on hand.
Not sure how best to track your supplies? Try Stockpile - the world's best online inventory solution for small business. Our free online solution is great for more than just inventory tracking. Don’t want your supplies mixed in with your actual inventory? No worries. You can simply create a location name such as Office Supplies or some other heading that works for you and input your office supply data into our system. Once you have everything entered you will be able to access your supply data, anytime from anywhere. Encourage employees to input data into Stockpile as they use supplies so that they are subtracted from the system eliminating the need to spend time counting supplies each quarter to see what you need to reorder. Because Stockpile works on mobile devices it is quick and easy for anyone to update this information on the fly. Not using Stockpile yet for your inventory management? What are you waiting for? New isn’t necessarily better, but then again sometimes it is!
