No matter what kind of business you run, the chances are good that you could deal with your inventory in a way that would help your bottom line. Think you way is ok? Think about this. In the United States, it has been estimated that an amount that is equal to 7% of the GDP (that comes to more than $1.1 trillion) is locked away in inventory. For every one dollar they bring in, American retailers have at least $1.43 in inventory. Despite advancements in technology and inventory tracking software, business across the nation still sit on stockpiles of stuff. In the past five years, the amount of goods that are being stockpiled has gone up by 8%/
Even businesses that have their supply of goods under control can use better inventory tracking software. If you workers use tools that can be taken out and need to be shared, the right asset tracking software can be used in conjunction with your property inventory management software to keep a better eye on where your items are and who has been using them.
Reasons to Upgrade Your Inventory Tracking Software:
- It is always cheaper and faster to let technology track items. Even when it comes to counting money, machines do it faster. When a person counts cash, they have to do it up to three times to make sure they got it right. Machines do not need to go through the extra steps. The same can be said of how your manage and track your inventory.
- Barcodes are better for tracking with the right software. If you have to go through all of your items and inventory and manually enter the barcodes, it can take forever. If you let your inventory tracking software, you will cut down on the amount of time it takes to do the very same work. It also frees up your workers to do what you hired them to do. This makes everyone in your company more efficient and effective at doing their jobs. It will also save you a lot of money in overtime expenses.
- Get the benefits of GPS tracking. It can be hard to manage the exact location of all of your inventory and tools when you do not use a global positioning system (GPS) but you can do this very effectively with inventory tracking software packages that are available today. This can help you streamline a number of processes in your workplace. This offers you a layer of simplification that can cut costs.
- Set up alerts to keep track of your inventory. If there are problems in your delivery process and you do not know about them right away, they can continue and the snowball effect can be disastrous for your customer service and become very costly to your business. Newer inventory tracking software can let you know when a real problem has come up that impacts the delivery of your goods to retail outlets or customers. By getting this information sooner, you can fix small problems before they grow out of control.
- You can get updates on damaged items. By the same way that you can learn if there are problems delivering your products, you can get alerts about any defects in your items. Again, the sooner you are informed that there are issues with your products, or you have tools that need fixing or replacing, the sooner you can manage those issues. Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You may even get updates before problems come up with tools or equipment.
Some business owners and managers balk at the idea of making upgrades to their software, even when doing so with their inventory tracking software can lead to a more effective and efficient process. When it comes to the software that you use to track tools and goods, keeping up with the newer options can really help your bottom line. The other good news about the updated software is that it is becoming easier and easier to use and learn.