The best inventory management software for your company is one that:
Offers the right features that you need to improve the way you manage your inventory.
Is relatively easy to learn, use, and implement by your employees in their daily business operations.
Fits nicely into your budget for software and logistics based on its price.
Includes a robust feature set that can be expanded over time to meet your company’s increasingly complex needs.
Not every business is the same, so the best inventory management software for another company in a different industry or with a much larger or smaller number of employees will likely not be the best one for your business. The point is that every business should find the ideal one for them. And they can do that by following the criteria outlined above to home in on it. We will go into greater depth on each of the points above so that you can find the software that will work best for you.
What Features Does It Offer?
There are all kinds of features that good inventory management software should offer. For example, it should give you the option to cycle count your inventory to make sure the quantities in your records are accurate and up to date. You should also be able to create as many parts and products as you like, move them around, and add several types of tracking information to them. And that is just the beginning of the kinds of features you may want to use to manage your inventory. We will discuss them even more in the “robust” section, so stay tuned.
How Easy Is It to Use?
Software is useless if no one knows how to use it. When looking at inventory management software, be sure to investigate how intuitive it is. Will your staff members be able to quickly pick it up and recognize its usefulness? If so, it might just be a winner. If not, buying it and investing a lot of time in it may prove to be a net loss for you. Be careful to go with a solution that guides you through the process of getting started and that can be used by anyone in the company who needs to have access to your inventory records in order to do their jobs effectively.
What Does It Cost?
The smaller the business is, the less money they have to spend on software of any kind. It is perfectly logical that a small business should not expect to pay a lot of money for inventory management software because their expectations for what the software can do will likely be much lower than the expectations of a much larger corporation. Basically, you should be able to pay a small amount at first for the best inventory management software for your situation. Just be sure that you are not too focused on cost because if that is your sole priority, you might just end up with a solution that will cost more in the long run. As we will discuss next, it is a good idea to pick a solution that can grow with you in terms of its feature set so you do not have to keep learning a new software system.
How Robust Is It?
Another way to ask this question is: how long can we stay with this particular inventory management software before we outgrow it? When you are just starting out, you might just need the ability to create items, import and export data in CSV files, scan items in and out with their barcodes, add and remove inventory from the system, move inventory between locations, cycle count items in the warehouse, create and assign units of measure, and add locations. Later on, you may want to add the ability to create sales orders, sales reports, tax rates, default locations, sales reps, customers, and item categories to make it easier to sell to your customers and keep everything organized. Still later, you may want to add purchase orders, purchasing reports, payments, lot number tracking, batch number tracking, expiration date tracking, unit of measure conversions, and even vendor management. All of this helps you better monitor your inventory quantities and keep them replenished at the right times. And finally, when the time is right you may want to use stock alerts, auto reordering, payment processing, and default vendors to automate the reordering process and really put your company on the path of sustainability far into the future. If you can use the same software to do all of these things one step at a time, you can keep using it for many years.
What Is the Best Option for You?
The best option for you is entirely dependent upon your specifications and preferences. Boxstorm is an online inventory management solution that offers the first free inventory app that integrates with QuickBooks Online. Sign up for a free account with Boxstorm Forever Free today to see for yourself if it is the best inventory management software for you. It doesn’t cost a thing, so why not give it a try?
TL;DR SUMMARY
As noted at the beginning of this article, the best inventory management software:
- Offers the right features
- Is relatively easy to learn
- Fits into your budget
- Has a robust feature set