Although it may seem like a basic daily task for a company, inventory management is often not done properly. This failure leads to a series of problems: excess or insufficient products, storage costs, delivery delays, and many other errors that compromise the business's operation.
In today's post, we've brought you valuable tips to help you avoid mistakes in your company's inventory management. Read on to find out!
A well-planned and controlled inventory means lower storage costs, greater productivity, optimized search time for certain items, and, consequently, sales and purchases flowing in balance, without excess or surplus.
There's no magic formula or single rule that defines the best way to achieve efficient inventory control. What matters is choosing the method or tool that meets your business needs, addresses day-to-day issues, and fits within your budget.
With that in mind, we've put together four tips to improve your business's inventory management. Stay tuned!
If you don't measure, you can't manage—that's the basic rule for any business. Therefore, the first step in efficient inventory management is knowing exactly what and how much of each item you have in stock.
Many managers take advantage of promotions and offers from suppliers and fill their inventory with products that are not in high demand. As a result, they become too old, obsolete, and end up relying on "occasional sales" – which is not good for the business's financial health.
Therefore, much more than keeping an up-to-date record of everything that comes in and goes out of stock, it's about knowing how to evaluate and extract the best information. This means paying attention to which products are selling the most, which are in low inventory, and which are stagnant.
The quality of inventory control is directly related to the quality of data input. Many entrepreneurs, in an effort to reduce costs, fail to optimize and automate inventory management processes. This can result in countless daily tasks being missed or even not being met on time.
Having an inventory management system is essential. Management software integrates with other departments within the company and helps with accounting for goods, keeping accurate and up-to-date records of everything entering and leaving the inventory.
Thus, a sale made is automatically removed from inventory, allowing the manager to know exactly the available quantity of each item and the demand for certain products.
There's no getting around it: if you work with inventory, it's crucial that all products are accounted for. An up-to-date inventory provides security and greater control over what's in stock and which items sell the most or least.
By automating processes, it's possible to generate reports that provide a detailed overview of inventory status, as well as the performance of well-selling and stagnant items, enabling better results and increased profits from top-selling items.
Preparing sales forecasts is essential for efficient inventory management. Therefore, use the information stored in the database to update your inventory.
This makes it possible to plan and anticipate the demand for a given product, eliminating the possibility of it being out of stock at a particular time of peak sales.
Furthermore, it's important to pay attention to so-called "seasonal" periods, when a particular product is in high demand. To understand which products are in highest demand and at what times, it's essential to keep inventory data up-to-date.
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