Properly managing your inventory is critical to your business’ success. Over-stocks and under-stocks both have the potential to tie up your company’s finances, create unnecessary stress, and impact current and future customer orders. Gaining control over your inventory, however, is easier said than done. Proper inventory management requires a significant amount of time, money, effort, and business resources; however, because it is already one of the largest expenses a business has to make, many companies do not want to incur any additional costs to improve their inventory efforts. This places many businesses in a bind and creates several challenges for businesses wishing to improve their inventory management strategy.

Improving your inventory management is actually fairly simple. All you have to do is keep a close eye on inventory levels, adjust to customer demand while keeping warehousing costs down, and prevent capital loss by keeping only the necessary amount in stock. If you do these three things, you will begin to see positive impacts in both your company’s bottom-line and your customer relationships.

While this may sound good in theory, many manufacturers and distributors struggle with putting this plan into action. Simply telling you what constitutes good inventory management is not enough. In order to really help you, we need to tell you how to arrive at a place of effective inventory management.

Before we dive into the solution, let’s talk about the problem. Sage Business Solutions recently surveyed a large base of their customers to understand the unique inventory challenges today’s manufacturers and distributors are facing. According to the survey:

  • 42% of companies rated stock-outs as their primary concern in regards to inventory management
  • 37% of companies were primarily concerned by excess inventory
  • 21% of the companies surveyed reported that they spent too much time calculating reorder quantities

As a consensus, inventory management is a challenge, and companies are constantly looking for ways to ease that challenge. Many companies are turning to new and innovative inventory management software solutions, such as Sage Inventory Advisor, to aid their efforts and create better processes. Sage Inventory Advisor is a Cloud-based inventory management solution that integrates directly with Sage 100 ERP to help companies address the complex supply chain and inventory challenges faced on a daily basis. The software is quick and easy to implement and allows users to access the software directly in a web browser or on a mobile device, providing users with significant flexibility.

Putting Control Back in Your Hands

Sage Inventory Advisor provides companies with daily diagnostics of inventory to help companies reduce the time spent on forecasting and determines the optimal investment required to achieve the desired target fill. Designed to help companies engaged in any type of inventory management (including retail trade), the software assists companies by analyzing inventory data so software users can identify where the biggest improvements need to be made. Users can also utilize the software’s “what if” stimulation in order to analyze, forecast, and replenish stock quickly and easily, enabling them to meet customer demands with ease.

Manufacturers and distributors need instant visibility to critical inventory KPIs, such as stock holding, stock outs, potential stock outs, surplus orders, and excess stock. Sage Inventory Advisor provides the visibility needed to stay ahead of the game and provides companies with early warnings of stock outs, potential stock outs or surplus orders. It recommends optimal replenishment and automatically calculates maximum/minimum levels, saving companies a significant amount of time and effort. The dashboard feature gives companies instant access to the items needing their immediate attention so they can move quickly on any potential issues. Software users can even amend orders in Sage Inventory Advisor and send them back to the company’s ERP system for processing, streamlining the process and saving valuable time.

Proper inventory management involves analyzing your own internal data to make better business decisions. Sage Inventory Advisor can provide you with the tools you need to gain better control of your inventory, meet customer demands quickly, and improve your company’s bottom-line. To learn more about Sage Inventory Advisor, click here.

If you’d like to learn more about how Sage Inventory Advisor can solve your inventory challenges, give us a call today. We’d be more than happy to help you improve your inventory management and increase your bottom-line.