Business Inventory Software Picks That Are Perfect for Your Company

When tasked with managing business inventory, it is important to balance the costs of inventory with the benefits of it, and a large part of this is planning ahead to account for the depletion of inventory, and establishing proper control over products that are on order and products that are in stock. It can be a time-consuming and intensive duty, and luckily there are many business inventory software solutions that can help you manage your stock.

Key Features

A couple business inventory software solutions are detailed below, but there are a few features you should look for no matter what product you choose. For starters, be sure to select a company that offers integrative business inventory software, so you can be sure the platform is compatible with your own computer system. The chosen solution should be able to track barcodes, store images, serial numbers, classifications, and matrixes; also, the system should be able to monitor seasonal order levels, stock levels and sales history, and special orders. Business inventory software should also provide the ability to set pricing requirements, and definitions for automatic reordering. And if your company is in the habit of ordering from suppliers by phone, you may want to find a solution with EDI (electronic data interchange) capabilities, which will allow you to send purchase orders electronically.

Epicor Inventory Management Software

Quite often, business inventory software solutions are modules included in an ERP platform, and as a renowned source of retail ERP, Epicor offers a pretty comprehensible inventory solution. They offer inventory management with the Epicor Retail Enterprise Selling suite, and particularly take pride in the cross-channel order management offered by their business inventory software, which will ultimately help customers find the right inventory balance. The inventory module provides a streamlined, real-time stock locator and order manager to enable all sales channels-from POS to e-commerce to a kiosk-to locate inventory and execute orders. The Enterprise Selling platform will search chain-wide to find inventory, and it will even allow users to capture sales where the customers are by offering home delivery and in-store pickup. Epicor’s Inventory Management Software will also help reduce lost sales and increase customer loyalty, and allows users to move inventory throughout sales channels.

NetSuite Inventory Management

Another major ERP and CRM vendor offering exceptional business inventory software is NetSuite, which offers on-demand solutions for mid-sized companies and divisions of large enterprises. Software-as-a-service solutions are becoming increasingly popular, as they offer users greater real-time functionality, and are more cost effective since they don’t require the purchase of software licensing and hardware. NetSuite’s inventory management services provide bin management, demand-based inventory replenishment, and the ability to set complex pricing rules based on individual customers. Other features include support for matrix items and item images, lot tracking, reporting with graphical views of inventory levels, and an audit trail for inventory adjustments. As this business inventory software suite is best suited to bigger companies, it can accommodate multi-currency pricing and multi-location inventory management.

inFlow

Smaller companies looking for business inventory software may want to consider inFlow, which received four and a half out of five stars in a 2009 CNET software review. InFlow’s inventory management platform has two products in its line: the Free Edition, and the Standard Edition. InFlow offers a clean, easy-to-use interface, which will likely be intuitive for people already familiar with business inventory software; but if they user isn’t accustomed to such a platform, there is a short training video on the website that walks through the ordering and reporting processes. Both editions can house information on customers, warehouse stock, pending orders, and more, and the program is highly-customizable. That being said, inFlow is almost certainly a business inventory software solution for smaller enterprises in search of inventory management software. The Free Edition will manage up to 100 customers and products, and can run 8 different types of reports, while the Standard Edition offers management of unlimited customers and products, and access to all reporting options.

Everest Advanced Inventory

Another popular business inventory software solution for small and medium-sized businesses is Everest Software’s inventory product. They provide a business inventory module in their Everest Advanced package, which is a fully integrated platform for managing the storefront, and the front- and back-office. That this business inventory software suite is all-encompassing is a definite perk-in addition to inventory management, it boasts CRM capabilities, as well as marketing, sales, shipping and receiving, and other functionalities. They offer both on-premise and hosted options, and the SaaS inventory management service is available on a per-user basis. As mentioned previously, on-demand solutions don’t require the same up-front capital as on-premise products, and are thus ideal for budding SMBs who want to save on IT costs.

Acumen’s InVIEW Inventory Suite

Another vendor offering a range of business inventory management solutions for companies of all sizes is Acumen. They are a Microsoft Certified Partner that sells an inventory product called InVIEW, in addition to a host of back-office business management products. InVIEW Inventory Management Software lets users run reports, locate products, control any inventory that needs to be reordered, and offers bar code readers and prints bar code labels to help with item identification. The system offers a customizable tree structure for tracking stock in different locations, and keeps track of stock levels as well-alerting users through a coded tier of warnings. Larger businesses will likely be attracted to InVIEW’s support of multiple printers (if there is a need to print several reports at a time), and Acumen will integrate the business inventory software into a company’s existing ERP platform. InVIEW Lite is the less extensive edition of their software, intended for smaller businesses with fewer inventory needs, and Handheld InVIEW can be integrated into either edition for companies needing management capabilities through their wireless handheld devices.

No matter how large or small your company, it is important to remember that inventory control has a direct impact on cash flow, so be sure to choose your business inventory software wisely. Don’t scrimp on features if you have vast, multi-currency needs, and likewise don’t shell out money for bells and whistles if your business is small.