Jay LeonardSell stuff? Rent stuff? Make stuff?
Well, then unless you’ve got a creepy, number-obsessed muppet with a Transylvanian accent on the payroll, chances are you need reliable inventory software to keep accurate stock counts and to manage the rest of your related inventory tasks.
Inventory software has come a long ways since the days of spreadsheets. Today’s programs not only manage basic tasks like maintaining price-lists, tracking on-hand quantities, and storing product details. They also integrate with a variety of other key business related modules to make sure you are handling your materials and product management as efficiently and accurately as possible.
The inventory infographic below from FindAccountingSoftware.com provides information on the features, industry specializations, and options you need to know about to make sure you company has the right technology to keep up with your inventory management challenges. Take a look.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jay Leonard.
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Would of loved to see some examples of inventory software too! Like http://www.inflowinventory.com!
From my experience, I think more than 5% of small businesses want standalone inventory software.
For example, if something’s off in your inventory, your accounting numbers suddenly become wrong as well. Having them separate may make it easier to keep everything accurate. I’ve heard this opinion from several small business owners.
Plus, good inventory software allows you to run reports that makes accounting easy. This is true regardless if you personally use software like quickbooks or have an accountant do it for you.
Interesting infographic nonetheless!
Cheers,
-Matt
Thanks for the comments on the infographic. I’m actually the person who put together the piece. I appreciate your input.
I was actually a bit surprised by the %’s of people we had seen searching for inventory as standalone versus as part of a complete system, but that is what the numbers beared out in terms of the software searches we had helped buyers conduct in 2013.
Regardless of the actual percentages, though, I think the more important thing to acknowledge is that there is not necessarily a right or wrong in terms of whether inventory is a standalone piece or not. I think it really always depends on the customer’s needs. There are many pros to a standalone inventory module. Namely, it can be require less expense to just change the inventory component (rather than the full system), it may allow access to inventory modules that are more targeted to a particular set of industry specific needs, and it can be quicker to train employees on just a new inventory application than a full system. On the flip side, utilizing a full accounting system with inventory as a component will generally require less on-going maintenance to manage the points of integration with other business functionality and can sometimes more easily support full real-time data exchange.
The major integration point for inventory management software across all industries should be with financial accounting. Complemented with industry specific features.
Thanks for the comments on the infographic. I’m actually the person who put together the piece. I appreciate your input.
I was actually a bit surprised by the %’s of people we had seen searching for inventory as standalone versus as part of a complete system, but that is what the numbers beared out in terms of the software searches we had helped buyers conduct in 2013.
Regardless of the actual percentages, though, I think the more important thing to acknowledge is that there is not necessarily a right or wrong in terms of whether inventory is a standalone piece or not. I think it really always depends on the customer’s needs. There are many pros to a standalone inventory module. Namely, it can be require less expense to just change the inventory component (rather than the full system), it may allow access to inventory modules that are more targeted to a particular set of industry specific needs, and it can be quicker to train employees on just a new inventory application than a full system. On the flip side, utilizing a full accounting system with inventory as a component will generally require less on-going maintenance to manage the points of integration with other business functionality and can sometimes more easily support full real-time data exchange.
Hi Arnaud, I think the observation about the major point of integration with inventory coming from financial accounting is spot on. The one thing I would mention is that I think that this is well represented in the infographic. In terms of financial accounting systems, they will the provide purchasing modules that track the financial acquisition of the stock and order entry modules which track the outflow of inventory. These are the two primary “accounting” interactions that occur with inventory. To be fair, though, many of today’s more comprehensive accounting systems will also include some of the other modules represented in the diagram (CRM, manufacturing modules, shipping/receiving, etc).
Hi Adam.
Totally agree it’s all about the customer’s needs. The more we can offer, the more businesses we can serve and help.
We would love to eventually offer optional integration with accounting software such as quickbooks. For now, transactions can be manually exported by CSV into quickbooks.
Our stance is that if you’re a product based business, you would want to run your business using product-centric software such as inFlow.
Using product based software, you get more control and options not available in accounting software such as quickbooks. For example, with inFlow, you get multiple locations, barcode scanning, stock transfers as basic features.
To get those features with quickbooks, you need to subscribe to Quickbooks Advance Inventory at $1000 a year. A full license of inFlow, in comparison, is under $500 one time.
But, you’re absolutely right, it all depends on the business and what their needs are.
Cheers,
-Matt