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Inventory and Sales Management Software for PC: When Do You Need It and What Should You Choose?
When are a notebook and Excel no longer enough for your warehouse? And what should inventory and sales software do to save you time and prevent stock discrepancies?
Many traders start out tracking their stock in a notebook or an Excel file. That's enough at first, but it quickly becomes a burden: numbers that don't match, items that run out without you noticing, and stock counts that take days.
Signs you need software
- The gap between recorded stock and what's actually on the shelf comes back with every count.
- You can't quickly tell how much of an item you have, or where it is.
- You have more than one warehouse or branch, and you move goods between them.
- Stock counts bring your work to a halt for a day or more.
What should warehouse management software do?
A barcode for every item
Scanning barcodes is faster and more accurate than typing. Good software prints barcode labels for items that don't have one.
Cartons and variants
An item may be bought by the carton and sold by the unit, and it may come in different sizes and colors. The software should handle this without you doing the math by hand.
Branches and transfers
When you move goods from a warehouse to a branch, they should be deducted from the first and added to the second in the same transaction, so nothing gets lost in between.
Fast, blind counts
A blind count, where the employee doesn't see the expected quantity, reveals the real discrepancies. And a weekly partial count beats an exhausting annual one.
Clear reports
Items running low, slow-moving stock and the movement history of each item, with Excel and PDF export.
The bottom line
Choose software that runs on the warehouse computer, even without internet, and test its trial version on your real items. If you can finish counting a full shelf quickly and with no discrepancies, you've found your software.
