As a small business owner, you have a lot of responsibilities on your plate. Keeping track of your inventory is a must for both keeping loyal customers and ensuring you’re not wasting money. Here are four smart tips that can help you to better manage your business inventory.
Get An Inventory Management Software
If you’re still taking inventory by hand, then you’re behind on times. You should be upgrading to an inventory management software that helps you better control your inventory levels. This software is usually compatible with barcode scanners so your staff can scan in new products as they arrive. This type of software offers real-time inventory figures so you know where your business inventory stands at any point in time.
Set Reorder Thresholds
When you decide on a specific stocktaking software, you can set up automatic thresholds for your inventory products. When the inventory level of a specific product reaches your set threshold, the system will automatically order new product or alert you to do so. This helps to ensure that you never run out of the product because you didn’t have up-to-date inventory figures.
Assess Your Organizational Needs
Your warehouse can be set up in various fashions. The products that are utilized more often should be placed near the front of your loading dock. This will cut down on loading and unloading times for these products. It’s important to assess your organizational needs from time to time as popular products can change seasonally. This holds especially true in the retail market. Having an efficient organization set up in your warehouse can do wonders for cutting down loading/unloading times and inventory tracking.
Do A Manual Inventory Audit From Time To Time
It’s very hard to assess errors with your inventory management process without auditing your inventory from time to time. While having an inventory management system will help to greatly reduce errors, some may still pop up. Therefore, you shouldn’t just rely on your inventory management system to provide you with inventory figures. You should have your staff manually audit the inventory levels from time to time to ensure they match what’s listed in your inventory management software. When you do this, you see if there are any errors with your inventory tracking and determine what is causing them.
Keeping inventory is a must for any successful small business over the long-term. With the help of a good inventory management system and smart practices, you can better manage your inventory. Remember that you should be double-checking your inventory often to locate any bugs in your current processing so you can remedy them before they get any worse.