Imagine if you could magically save 4-5 hours of your time each day that you spend on your excel sheets. These long hours that you utilize to fill and update your inventory status on these excel sheets can be cut down to simply one click! What will help you to do this? Nothing, but the best inventory management system.
Before deciding which inventory management software is the best one for your business, you should ask yourself some simple questions. Knowing the answers to these questions will help you be more confident when you make your choice. We’ll outline the most important questions to ask when selecting an automated inventory management.
Question 1: How big is your business?
The first important question to clarify is what size and stage of growth your business is in. Is it small, medium, or large? If your business is still small, paying a lot of money for an inventory management is not the best idea. Until you get to around $100k in turnover, a spreadsheet may be adequate enough for your simple inventory needs. Medium and large businesses usually have more complex inventory ecosystems, which require more advanced inventory management features.
Question 2: What is your budget?
If you want inventory management software, you need to fit it into your budget. You must know that if you have a small business, you have limited resources, so you have to make sure that you get a value equivalent to the price of your purchases.
Question 3: What type of inventory management software does your business need?
You must have a clear idea of what your concerns are. First of all, you must know that the mode of operation of each type of business is different. For example, if you are running a clothes store, the factors you might need to update will be different from that of a restaurant business software. Secondly, the specific needs of the business must also be taken into consideration, for example, if you require software that helps print barcodes for your products, check if you get the one that provides you both inventory management as well as barcode printing.
Question 4: What problems do you need to solve?
If you’re buying an inventory management solution, make sure you know what problem that tool is going to be solving. Make a list of inventory management challenges or other operational challenges you want your inventory management system to solve. This could include things like:
- More accurately tracking stock levels
- Reducing the cost of holding stock
- Saving time and streamlining workflows
- Increasing profits
- Forecasting customer demand and etc.
Question 5: How easy is the software to use?
This software is not only used by you, but also by others among your staff. The software should be user friendly so you can train more than one employee on how to use it. That way, you can spread inventory management tasks across more workers and easily replace employees when they leave and you hire new ones.
Question 6: How many people will be using it?
It’s important to know who will need access to the system so you choose the one that best fits your business and team. If multiple teams or people will be accessing your system, it’s a good idea to choose cloud-based software that updates automatically in real time for everyone to see. With a cloud-based inventory management system any employee or partner of the business can instantly gain up-to-date information with no need for emails, texts or phone calls to double-check orders – everything is contained in the online system.
Question 7: Is the software scalable?
You might not be sure today, of what features you might require in the inventory management software in the future. But it’s important to know that your business will keep growing, and so will your requirements. For example, if you are a store seller, you might plan to go online tomorrow, or vice versa. So, choose inventory management software that has the potential to scale up as and when you need.
Question 8: Is it possible to see the history of inventory flow?
Choose a software platform that will provide you with this information. As the history of your sales and its pattern will give you a very clear idea of where you went wrong and what you did right. This information should be closely and constantly monitored in order to better sales.
Moving forward
Write down your responses to these questions, talk about them with other decision makers in your company, and then move forward with confidence! You can sign up for ElmaSys demo right now to see if it’s the right inventory management software for you.
