Gone are the days when boxes were ticked off with a pencil. When your business sells a product, you know the importance and time consuming of properly tracking your inventory.
The inventory management software is the digital replacement for printed inventory sheets, but it can be much more. Use Benzingas Ranking of the best inventory management software to find a platform to transform your business.
1. Best for global supply chain management: Oracle
When selling worldwide, you may face unique challenges in tracking and provisioning your inventory. Oracle is enterprise resource planning (ERP) software with an integrated inventory management system that you can use to optimize your global supply chain.
Oracle Inventory Management can integrate all of your global inventory tracking systems into a single cloud-based control panel. Comprehensive materials management, optimized replenishment, and costing with profit optimization allow you to manage every part of your supply chain across multiple types of businesses.
Pricing: The subscription and license prices are listed here
App? Yes
2. Best for Small Businesses: Zoho Inventory
Zoho is software as a service and CRM platform that offers a wide range of business management functions, including Zoho Inventory. Zoho Inventory is a playful, modular interface that allows you to manage inventory, fulfill orders, and control your inventory.
Features like warehouse management and multiple shipping integrations ensure that your inventory flows properly while protecting your bottom line. The free version can accommodate up to 10 users, making it a great solution for small businesses.
Request a demo here. Or register now here for free.
Pricing: Billed annually for $ 0, $ 39, $ 79, or $ 199 per month
App? Yes
Pricing
$ 0- $ 60 per month per location or custom premium pricing
3. Best to take your brick and mortar online: Square
Square is popular workflow management software because of its inventory capabilities. Omnichannel and multi-location warehouse management, customizable item categories, and easy barcode generation make it easy to sell both online and in-store.
Square’s inventory management includes a longer list of features that you can use to bring both your brick-and-mortar and online stores under one roof. Advanced ecommerce tools like abandoned cart notifications, a smart website builder, and automatic syncing between your storefront and online inventory make the transition to selling online a lot easier.
Getting into Square is free. Login here.
4. Best for omnichannel retail: Lightspeed Retail
Lightspeed Retail is a fully integrated omnichannel retail solution. Lightspeed offers tools specifically designed for your e-commerce inventory management.
Easily import inventory data from your physical store, sell old inventory with specially generated discount codes, and easily perform bulk updates of your inventory with importable data features.
Lightspeed works for in-person and e-commerce stores of all types, including CBD, bike, and health food stores. Lightspeed also offers a highly functional mobile app that you can use to manage your business on the go.
Lightspeed offers free resources to retailers. Give Lightspeed a try with this free trial.
Pricing: Annually $ 69, $ 99, $ 119, $ 169, or $ 229 per month plus additional terminal fees
App? Yes
5. Best for restaurants: Upserve
Thin profit margins and the potential for disgruntled Yelp reviews make proper inventory management a must in a restaurant. Upserve by Lightspeed, formerly known as Breadcrumb, is a fully integrated POS system with powerful inventory management capabilities.
Upserve really allows you to dial in your inventory. Your recipes are synchronized with your point of sale and automatically update your number in your inventory tracker. Upserve even calculates the costs and margins of recipes based on market prices in real time, so you know which parts of your menu are profitable and which ones need tweaking.
Other useful functions are restaurant-specific analyzes and support around the clock. Try a demo of Upserve here.
Pricing: $ 59, $ 199, or $ 359 plus POS terminal fees
App? Yes
Key features of the inventory management software
While different applications have unique features, here are the minimum requirements for good inventory management software:
- Customizable, user-friendly and preferably cloud-enabled inventory management
- Inventory Tracking – Bonus when automated, another bonus when barcode generation, scanning and marking are available.
- Inventory forecasting that uses data from customer demand, time of year, etc. to adjust inventory levels as needed
- Powerful reports and analytics to let you know what works and what doesn’t
- Strong data protection to protect you and your business
- Third-party app integrations
Advantages of the inventory management software
When your business relies on the sale of a tangible product, inventory management is an integral part of your day-to-day business. Solid inventory management software automates and streamlines many inventory tasks to protect your bottom line and save you valuable time and money.
You can expect your inventory management software to:
- Cut the fat and save costs in a number of ways by cutting down unnecessary costs, avoiding losses from bad customer experiences, saving human capital, and much more
- Maintain inventory of the products customers want so you never over-sell or keep in stock
- Offer insights into your operations with integrated analyzes
- Increase productivity by automating tedious tasks
- Enhance the customer experience with ample inventory and on-time shipping
- Better organize your inventory to streamline the shipping process
Inventory management software cost
How Much Should You Be Spending on Inventory Management Software? Well, there are several factors that influence this decision. How big is your business What are your special needs?
Do you just need inventory management or do you prefer it as a built-in feature built into a larger platform? Do you have scalability concerns?
These are all things to keep in mind when deciding what kind of inventory management software you think is a reasonable expense. Prices vary between platforms, but our featured software fell into the following areas based on company size:
For small businesses: $ 0 to $ 69 per month
Medium Business: $ 39 to $ 199 per month or custom pricing
Large Business: $ 199 to $ 359 per month or custom pricing
Optimize your inventory management
Inventory management is one of the many tasks on your daily to-do list. Data can help you make decisions that affect your business, and inventory management software can help you make sure your information is correct every time.
Contact one of Benzingas experts to find the best inventory management software to get started.
Best methodology for the inventory management software
Benzinga analyzed the top inventory management software by industry and concluded the list with the best attributes. We prioritized pricing, features, and scalability. We also considered mobile app availability and customer reviews.