Managing inventory in accordance with the overall company strategy is paramount for warehouse management. Warehouse employees spend a lot of time fretting over the optimal time to order inventory and how often inventory should be counted. An additional concern is maintaining the inventory safe from theft or damage. It takes sharp minds and dedicated employees to make this happen, but inventory management software definitely helps.
Where Inventory Software Fits Into the Equation
Most companies nowadays are using barcodes to track their inventory. A barcode system consists of the barcodes themselves, a barcode printer, a barcode scanner, and of course software to manage all of the information. When the warehouse employees scan an item with the reader, the software should automatically pick this up and organize the information accordingly. This means that the warehouse manager can simply log into the company computer and see inventory levels. This makes it easier to know the optimal reorder point. This software also allows managers to see new orders coming in from the sales department. Having all of this information at their fingertips, helps the warehouse team be prepared.
One popular solution for small to medium sized businesses is FishBowl Inventory. Companies like FishBowl because of its ERP like qualities. ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. The basic idea is that instead of having one software solution for the warehouse department, another software solution for accounting, and yet another software package for marketing you have one system that all three can use. This works by having a centralized database where access rights are assigned to the individual departments.
One advantage of a centralized system like FishBowl is efficiency. Instead of warehouse petitioning accounting for information on the day's sales, they can simply look it up themselves. Instead of marketing having to head out to the warehouse to check out inventory levels they can just login to their computers and query the database for themselves. Senior management can control which information is allowed by which departments.
Note that FishBowl isn't a true ERP system; however, it does integrate with the most popular accounting software available, QuickBooks.
Warehouse inventory software like FishBowl not only improves efficiency, but it also improves accuracy. Accuracy is improved because the departments can enter in the information themselves. Traditionally information has been compiled in several spreadsheets, which are prone to errors, and then sent to a data-entry team. Data that is passed along several times and then combined is more likely to have errors in it then data that is entered directly from the source.