7 Things To Look For In Inventory Management Software

As a small business owner, it’s your job to minimize the likelihood of errors. Manual inventory tracking with a clipboard and paper or an Excel spreadsheet leaves room for human error which can lead to a loss of inventory and profits.

Understanding your business needs is important because features and functionality strongly correlate with cost. For instance, if you need a simple program that will track product stock levels and cost of goods sold, it may only cost you a few dollars a day. If you need more advanced features like supply chain management or warehouse management, your solution could cost a few hundred dollars a month.

While cost plays an important role, so does the usability of the software. Consider how technically savvy you are and where your employees are on a technical scale. If it’s going to take your staff hours upon hours to learn the basic operational procedures and inventory controls, it’s probably not worth your time. Think about it. Every time you hire a new employee, you’re going to have to spend hours training each and every one of them.

As an owner, if you find yourself struggling to navigate the system’s back-office to find purchase order data or reorder triggers to manage order fulfillment, you may want to consider a solution that’s more user-friendly. Would you buy a car with a manual transmission if you didn’t know how to drive a stick shift? Probably not. But if you did, you’d have to take out the time to learn.

The same goes for inventory management software. If the learning curve is too high for you and your employees, it’s going to cost you a lot of time, energy, and money that could hurt your business in the long run.

In most cases, you won’t be the very first customer, but you still want to make sure that other businesses are successfully using system. In other words, don’t be afraid to ask for references. Talk to other small or mid-sized business owners and find out their opinion of the solution.

Beyond collecting data, inventory management solutions need to be able to present that information into neatly organized reports for the user. What’s the point of having data if you have to jump through hoops to figure out what it all means?

Most inventory management software will have pre-defined reports that provide the key metrics you need. Others will take it a step further and give you the ability to drill down and customize reports to see unique insights that are important to your business.

Depending on your industry, you may want inventory management software that can partially or entirely automate the process of ordering new supplies. At the very least, it’s helpful to have notifications or reports that let you know what items are out of stock.

Since inventory management is so closely tied to other areas of the business, it serves as a good starting point to see what other systems integrate with your inventory software.

While you may not need any of these integrations now, as your business grows you’ll want to make sure these options are available. A few common integrations to consider, include:

Inventory management is hard. It’s even harder when you own multiple storefronts. If you have multiple store locations or plan on opening new storefronts, you’ll want one centralized tool to help manage inventory. Make sure the solution you invest in can support your potentially expanding business.

Some business owners overlook the importance of having access to quality customer support. The last thing you want to happen after you buy new software is to be left out it in the cold to figure out how to use it. Unless you’re super confident in your ability to figure it all out, make sure the software provider offers training and ongoing 24/7 support or else you may find yourself up a creek without a paddle.

No one ever said finding the best inventory management software for your business was an easy task. However, now that you understand what features to look for during your search, you are better prepared than most. Most importantly, take your time and be strategic. One small hasty decision now can cost you big time down the road.

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