In today’s business world, accurately managing your inventory is a crucial aspect of all your business processes. And with this comes the dire need to integrate the best Inventory Software that best meets your business needs. Therefore, creating an ideal inventory process workflow that makes this possible is a critical step in the optimization of your key assets.
Inventory Software workflow enables organizations to effectively track and organize all their goods at any given time. That inventory then becomes revenue once it’s been sold to the clients or dealers. Essentially, what software workflow does for businesses is to clearly define the tasks, data or information that pass from one department, employee, client, or dealer to the next.
Take wholesale distribution businesses, for example. These types of businesses rely entirely on Inventory Software and management processes to ensure the successful operation of their processes. These include:
- Cycle counts
- Payments
- Fulfillments
- Inventory transfers
- Warehouse management
- Shipping/receiving
- Inventory management
As you can see, software workflow does much more than meets the eye. So, when looking to develop the best inventory workflow, you must have the best Inventory Software and management tools at your disposal. Plus, you must also know how to use them. This is how you’ll be able to determine what needs to be done to complete the processes successfully. Not only this but also to other related tasks and activities as well as identify the best order to achieve each of those tasks.
What are the tasks that are specific to Inventory Software?
1. Establishing transfer orders for the instar-company inventory movements
What this step addresses are the goods that your business moves between locations but don’t necessarily need ‘official’ shipping and receiving actions. The transfer of your orders in managing product movements in your warehouse, for example, is one such action. It isn’t imperative that you track the movements of assets within your company stockrooms. You will, however, need to use all item costs for all the transfer orders, if possible, to define the prices in the Inventory Software platform.
Some firms require a certain level of criteria to differentiate responsibilities across its users. In such cases, you may need to create an approval workflow that systematically enforces this process as well.
2. Develop a cycle count strategy that clearly classifies items based on their movement velocity and the frequency with which to count the items
This process involves inventory auditing processes where subsequent small inventories that are located in specific places are counted on particular days. For such processes, cycle counting can help your inventory a great deal. This is especially crucial in determining whether you’re your inventory records correspond with what is actually in your stock. So, making cycle counting be part of your software workflow, you can now more accurately count small amounts of inventory more frequently. What’s more, you can even divide that inventory into different groups by product type and location. All you need to do here is set a proper schedule that counts one group a week. If you can adhere to this schedule, then you’ll be good to go.
3. Set reorder points, preferred stock levels, safety stock levels, and lead times for your inventory
For your business to stand any chance of being successful, you must cater to all inventory processes. And these include establishing an inventory location reorder point, preferred stock level, safety stock level, and lead time for each inventory item. You cannot afford to leave any stone unturned. With a good Inventory Software, you can automate all these processes. Start by creating purchase orders for the items in stock for when they start to run low. If, however, your transaction history is less than six months, then you can use static values to define these thresholds. With the same data, you can also auto-calculate to determine each inventory item’s preset values. Simple as that, and your business will be on its feet in no time.
4. Inventory adjustments can account for theft, breakages, loss, and errors
You can always match your inventory levels using inventory adjustments. Doing this helps you determine each item’s actual on-hand quality as well. And this helps to alleviate ant worry you may have over any item that is on your warehouse’s shelf when the time comes to pick it up. Incorporating inventory adjustments into your Inventory Software workflow helps to automatically match any item increase or decrease that’s made in your inventory to what you have in your stock. And this is precisely what you ought to work towards and ensure that you account for each item in your inventory.
Take the holistic approach
Most Inventory Software today have demand planning functionality that works to generate demand and supply plans. Inventory Software workflow programs also work to help drive procurement activities in your business as well. A supply chain control tower that works to provide you with a clear snapshot of your current inventory levels of items is also crucial as well. You must know that this is based solely on your existing transactions that your Inventory Software has recorded.
Finally, you also need to work on how you can establish key performance indicators (KPIs) for your inventory. Not only this but also leverage reporting as well to help you track and monitor your item performances and item availability.
By taking a holistic approach to your Inventory Software workflows, your business can develop very efficient and customized inventory management approaches. These approaches can help you meet most, if not all, of your individual and business needs. And in return, you will start to see the real benefits of making such a move. You will witness better business visibility, faster audit completions, improved financial management, and lower IT costs. Everything all new and established businesses are in dire need of.
Final thoughts
Thanks to technological advancements, Inventory Software has brought businesses a long way especially regarding inventory control and management. And it’s probably safe to say that we can expect even better optimized, sophisticated Inventory Software soon to make our inventory processes and workflows more efficient.
For any types of queries, you can contact us on info[at]namasteui.com.