Inventory management is central to any good business. Without proper tracking, sales flow is disrupted, products run out or pile up, and profits drop. These tools can also help measure employee performance. That’s why it’s vital to have high quality, intuitive inventory tracking tools.
With the wide variety of inventory management tools on the market today, your business can choose between independent tools and phone apps compatible with your primary device. Here are 3 options to consider to smooth sales and keep business on track.
Big Warehouse Solutions
For large warehouses where inventory management requires climbing or use of forklifts to reach high pallets, your best options are dedicated industrial devices. Such tools can handle a drop from heights, as well as exposure to moisture and varied temperatures that can arise in warehouse scenarios – even a well protected phone is at risk under these circumstances.
Industrial inventory devices are ideal for handling construction materials and spare parts, lumber, and farming equipment – though they’ll work well for any significant quantity of inventory and tend to be intuitive, simple devices. These tools are also capable of handling huge amounts of product for large scale operations.
Integrated POS Options
Another option for inventory management is an integrated point of sales tool. Although most simple phone-affiliated credit card scanners aren’t equipped to key into your inventory process, when joined with appropriate apps each sale can be tied to your inventory. This is most manageable for small businesses with a restricted number of products. Because it’s not a scaleable solution, such systems aren’t recommended for growing companies.
Apps For The BYOD Set
Many companies today prefer to allow employees to use apps integrated with their personal primary devices. Apps like PartKeepr and inFlow are ideal for managing inventory, with inFlow a particularly powerful tool. Without keying into web systems, inFlow can also perform workflow, take orders, and invoice. A multi-function tool like this is ideal for midsize companies working to align inventory management with other workplace organization tools.
Companies should be cautious about taking a BYOD approach to inventory, however, because even in controlled scenarios because devices are prone to be dropped or damaged. Depending on the size of the inventory management team, small companies should consider issuing company devices for this purpose. This can also reduce security concerns that arise in BYOD scenarios.
Warehouse and inventory management tools are rapidly evolving, but in many cases it’s the external software that’s changing, not the physical devices. Scanning tools are all similar – whether they’re checking barcodes or RFID chips or QR codes. It’s what happens after products are scanned that makes the tool successful – that’s why it’s vital to dig deep into the associated software options to determine the what tools are best for your business.