Inventory Management is a fundamental part of supply chain management. It helps companies account for the most incoming and outgoing stock to meet the customer’s requirements. Also, online inventory management software plays a crucial role in avoiding the expense of overstock or loss of business with stockouts.
Moreover, the system impacts every necessary function of the business including accounting, production, warehouse management, purchasing, sales, and customer service. And to do so, multiple inventory management applications come to the rescue. Along with the inventory software, its features are equally necessary for an inventory business to run smoothly.
So, we are on the same line with the features that an inventory management software should provide to help every business gain maximum benefits.
Top 10 Features of An Online Inventory Management
An online inventory management software can have multiple features, depending on the businesses it is offering too. You can integrate an end number of elements as per your requirement and use. Moreover, here are some standard features that should be included in every inventory management application:
1. Inventory Management
The module or feature is all meant to keep your essential warehouse functions centralized. This helps in tracking every single inventory detail like stock level, product history, and other product specifications. More importantly, the data synchronization with all other modules in the inventory system.
This helps in accurately operating inventory which increases productivity by promoting a sense of collaboration among team members working from different locations on their systems. The inventory management module enables you to have multiple sub-categories and features to get real-time reports for all important inventory.
2. Barcoding and Tagging
The barcoding module helps you decrease standard human errors, which often occur due to manual data accumulation. Scanning barcode offers fast and reliable solutions as compared to manual data entry. At the same time, having a barcode system in place decreases the employee training time as it needs no more than a few minutes to master. The traditional barcode requires immense effort and workforce to train an employee on how to record product details.
Remember, barcoding enhances inventory control and keeps track of things like pricing and product details precisely.
3. Inventory Tracking
Warehouse needs a workplace to keep a tab at every step which plays an important role in letting you track your inventory accurately. Assets serial numbers, RFID, and other necessary things let you know real-time data of your inventory.
4. Reporting Tool
For any inventory business that is to be efficient, you require to be updated with real-time data regarding product status, driver’s whereabouts, order status, shipment, and much more. An efficient management app comes with the capability of integrating multiple reporting tools and features that make the reporting process easier. This is an important feature for any hardcore inventory business.
5. Inventory Forecasting
The Thumb Rule of every business is to keep their customers happy. Therefore, to help you with that Inventory Forecast lets you find out which product is going to be out of stock and what’s in abundance. This is a great trick to gear up your sleeves for serving an excellent user experience to your customers. The biggest advantage of forecasting is giving you the control and wisdom of spending your resources wisely. You should be more vigilant of sales attributes including the size, color, material, scent, and other features to be better prepared. This gives you a better judgment of purchase quantity and a better understanding of what to purchase and when.
6. Inventory Alerts
Gone are the days when business persons had to waste their valuable time and money on manually monitoring critical stock data. What if it is directly alerted via a low-stock inventory management alert? Moreover, by having the right inventory alert feature you will be able to find out the possible issues which might occur in the future directly via email or SMS alert. Inventory tracking is an important aspect of a running business accurately and will be easily managed by getting reliable inventory management.
7. Inventory Security and Backups
No matter what your business is about, having the right inventory and proper protection will help you put everything in the right place. The protection of your assets to the data it accumulates should be safe and sufficiently backed up for future use. Usually, the inventory should be securely optimized, to safeguard data against hacking.
8. IoT Integration
IoT Driven inventory management is an enhancing demand and an IoT along with RFID helps manufacturers solve the problems that are faced manually. Giving real-time visibility of the inventory to record inventory details automatically can help you manage the inventory smartly.
IoT integrated with an inventory system boils down to the data fetched by RFID readers into productive and meaningful insights. Integrating the IoT into the inventory system will get insights to help you be more focused on the location of the item, assets’ live status, movement, and much more.
9. Cloud-based Software With Real-time Updates
Having a cloud-based inventory system, you will have to manage your inventory transfer in real-time. Also, you are able to access the system on any device, anytime, anywhere, which means it will enhance the coordination between staff. As having accurate coordination will lead to taking an instant decision.
10. Transfer Management Capabilities
For an extending inventory-related business, the more you grow, the more you will have to manage returning and complicated inventory transfer requests. Also, managing such transfer requests is not challenging. It is an important feature as successful transfer requests are the key to ensuring warehouses are durably stocked and to making sure the business operations work well.
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All in All
An inventory management system offers a good insight into the stocks of the organization
with the help of automated workflows. Thus, you can arrange the entire inventory of the firm
with the help of an integrated inventory management solution efficiently.
Author Bio
We, CARGOES, are proud to be capable of offering business owners and operators
numerous features, including inventory management, to ensure the smooth operation of your
business.