The reality of running a small business is that, no matter how diligent you are at tracking your inventory, at some point your actual inventory quantities can get out of sync with the quantities stored in your inventory management system. The most common culprits are breakage, spoilage, or data entry errors. That's exactly why we built Stockpile which is the best online inventory management tool on the market. Try it; it's free!
Inventory Management Best Practices
A best practice is to regularly schedule a physical inventory of products. After the physical inventory management activity has been completed, the inventory management system should be updated. If you are using Stockpile, this becomes even easier, as you can take your laptop, tablet, or smart phone along with you, and update the system in real time. This saves you time from having to go back and update the inventory management system later.
If your inventory experiences breakage or spoilage, it's critically important to keep track of which stock items suffers from this type of activity. Stockpile has the ability to track the Total Damaged Stock for each inventory item. Having this type of information on hand gives the business owner the ability to make some important decisions, such as in the case of spoilage, limiting the amount of this type of item that is kept on hand. In the case of breakage, the owner may decide to relocate this item to a different location, to prevent further loss of this particular item. This directly translates into a cost savings for the business.
For purposes of inventory ordering, the Stockpile application gives business personnel the ability to filter which items need to be reordered sooner than later. Some items may not have to be reordered as much as others, which aids the business owner in keeping inventory levels at their lowest levels, while preventing stock outs. This has the effect of keeping inventory costs down, while freeing up revenue to be used in increasing sales.
These 3 simple best practices can all be simply accomplished by using Stockpile, the free online inventory management system.
