Proper inventory management is the backbone of successful businesses, preventing stockouts or excess stacks. It ensures a smooth supply chain, providing materials for operations. This critical function guarantees the correct stock levels, reducing the risks of overselling.
What are the Advantages of Inventory Management?
Businesses benefit from inventory management by precisely monitoring goods or materials to meet demand without overstocking. Enhanced inventory accuracy, an organized warehouse, and improved customer experience are achievable.
Understanding stock availability and demand enables faster order fulfillment, leading to satisfied customers and increased revenue for expanding sales and operations. Inventory management safeguards against issues like late deliveries, stockouts, customer churn, and profit loss.
We've outlined the top 5 best inventory management software in 2023 below so you can optimize all inventory and scale as your business grows.
1 EMERGE
Overview
The EMERGE App revolutionizes inventory management for wholesalers, trading entities, importers, exporters, and distribution and simple manufacturing businesses, with users from over a 100 countries globally. As a cloud-based software specialized in traditional B2B industries, EMERGE comes with a B2B E-commerce platform and also integrates seamlessly with Shopify and Woocommerce, while also collaborating with Xero and Quickbooks Online for streamlined bookkeeping, ensuring a consistent cash flow.
Tailored for traditional teams that are less tech-savvy, EMERGE boasts a user-friendly interface. The dedicated team of experts offers 24/7 support, ensuring customers harness the software's full potential. Friendly pricing starts from only $36.9/month for a user.
Using the inventory management software requires no prior technical expertise. EMERGE's key feature include multi-warehouse, multi-currency, serial, batch & warranty management, FIFO & landed costing, barcode & scanning for your warehouse management solution.
EMERGE minimizes errors by automating data synchronization across operations, encompassing inventory management, sales, accounting, and shipping. Advance user management allows you to have control over any document and who is allowed to approve it.
The software empowers simple to complex traders' workflows to import and export documentation optimized for your distribution company.
Features
Businesses must optimize inventory levels to maintain a healthy cash flow. The EMERGE App contains a comprehensive set of features to give merchants the advantage to run their operations.
Track Product History
EMERGE offers real-time visibility into adjustments, purchases, sales, returns, and exchanges through the inventory movement report. Synchronized data simplifies monitoring changes in posting or location.
Defective Products Adjustments
Defective products can cause irreversible damage to a business's brand reputation, potentially leading to financial losses due to customer churn. EMERGE enables easy tracking and identification of defective products. Managers can adjust information to update product availability before expiration.
Reorder
Businesses are at risk of losing customers when they lack supplies or materials for operations. Prevent customer dissatisfaction due to lack of supplies by placing online orders through EMERGE, automatically ensuring that stock levels remain sufficient.
Returns & Exchange
EMERGE also helps in managing returns and exchanges. It features a barcode inventory software that automatically updates the inventory status.
Adjustment Approval
Businesses can save time from manual inventory adjustment by activating user access to authorized staff. Managing adjustments for businesses with multiple locations or distribution centers can become overwhelming and difficult to control. EMERGE grants user access to authorized staff, saving time and enhancing control. A centralized hub enables efficient management across multiple locations or distribution centers.
Beyond inventory management, EMERGE includes warehouse management features such as detailed reports, shipping label printing, and shipment selection for swift order fulfillment. This enhances employee efficiency, ensuring efficient order processing solutions for business success.
EMERGE empowers businesses to achieve inventory accuracy by centralizing all workflows for admins, managers, and sales. With desktop or mobile real-time access and a comprehensive view of all stocks or products, anyone can implement inventory management to achieve business profitability.
2 Zoho Inventory
Overview
Zoho Inventory is a cloud-based inventory management system that supports desktop, tablet, and mobile platforms. It can seamlessly integrate with marketplaces like Shopify, eBay, Etsy, and Amazon.com. It also automates the process of inventory tracking with serial number tracking and batch tracking.
It contains different modules to serve different areas of managing stocks and streamline one and B2B orders. It has a dedicated support team that assists customers through phone, chat, or email, regardless of the user's subscription plan. Anyone can sign up for free and gain access to drop shipment, backorder, item groups, and composite items.
The free plan is limited to one user and one warehouse only, with 50 orders. Small-to-medium-sized businesses can subscribe to the Premium plan to handle up to 7500 orders, two users, and three warehouses.
Zoho Inventory has been praised by many customers, evidenced by its 4 to 5-star reviews on GetApp, Capterra, and G2. Many commended the inventory management software for its ease of use, set of features, and customer services. The app has allowed them to save time and increase productivity by streamlining sales and inventory processes as it ensures customer data is always up-to-date and accurate.
It is flexible and affordable, with add-ons to accommodate the requirements of large enterprises. Non-profit organizations can avail of a 15% discount on the inventory management system. It complies with GDPR, AICPA, and ISO data security standards, ensuring protection and attack resilience against cyber-attacks and other security threats.
Features
Centralized Record-Keeping
Zoho Inventory captures all sales information for centralized record-keeping, eliminating the errors caused by double entry and enabling comprehensive reporting.
Item Groups
Grouping items makes it easier to analyze and track their performance. Users can group them based on common attributes like color, size, or brand.
Barcode Scanner
Tracking the movement and expiration dates of stocks is a tedious process. Zoho Inventory features a barcode scanner that auto-fills codes for sales orders, invoicing, or item adjustments.
Wide Range of Integrations
The inventory management software can integrate with more than 30 major shipping carriers, allowing businesses to systemize every operation in the order management cycle for on-time order fulfillment.
Automatic Tasks and Alerts
Users can set tedious tasks on autopilot with automation rules where the app automatically handles different operations like stock monitoring, reordering supplies, or sending out order confirmation emails.
Reports
Zoho Inventory can also provide reports so businesses can monitor the performance of the inventory, sales, and shipment. With one click, they get to see the bestselling items or the most valuable customers to make quick, informed decisions.
Zoho Inventory is a complete inventory control system with intelligent automation and out-of-the-box integrations. Businesses can leverage the platform to drive sales and efficiency in managing and shipping orders.
3 Fishbowl Advance
Overview
Fishbowl Advance is an end-to-end inventory management software that can provide real-time inventory visibility and control across all locations. It simplifies the most complex manufacturing processes through intelligent automation and accurate real-time views of every level of operations.
It is trusted by customers in hundreds of industries and recognized as a frontrunner across multiple manufacturing and warehousing software categories. It is also recognized as a leader in the Warehouse and Manufacturing software on G2.
Businesses can host inventory management software on the premises. It offers a secure server environment with the flexibility to scale without losing operational efficiency. Fishbowl can provide a guided implementation process so its platform can fit into the current processes, resulting in smooth, transparent, and automated workflows after deployment.
Features
Real-Time Inventory
Businesses can eliminate manual data entry and ensure inventory records are continuously updated with the real-time inventory of Fisbowl Advance. They can see at a glance how much stock they have on hand and set reorder points to have sufficient time to replenish when lacking in supply.
The app can also eliminate the physical counting of inventory. It sends notifications when inventory falls below the customized threshold and generates purchase orders automatically.
Multi-location Management
Users can create thousands of locations, location groups, and sublocations on Fishbowl Advance. It can provide the inventory status of warehouses across multiple locations, from the shelves to aisles and trucks.
Reports
Fishbowl Advance can also provide consolidated reports so businesses can easily forecast future inventory requirements to avoid expiration and stockouts.
Warehouse Management
Businesses can also utilize Fisbowl Advance for warehouse management. They can create rules for purchase order approval and implement routing capabilities for timely and efficient picking. The software can display everything businesses need, from shipping costs and delivery details. It can also generate packing slips and commercial invoices automatically.
Fishbowl Advance eliminates manual and repetitive processes so companies can spend less time tracking orders, costs, and inventory. It provides all the functionality of a custom-built solution with real-time visibility and automation.
4 inFlow
Overview
inFlow is trusted by over 40,000 businesses to manage their orders and inventory. For 16 years, it has been helping them handle thousands of products and transactions with features that can scale to their company size.
It specializes in inventory tracking but offers flexible options to accommodate the unique workflows of businesses. It is GDPR compliant and award-winning, with 95+ integrations to accelerate business operations.
Features
inFlow centralizes all inventory and orders in one place, giving businesses insight into which SKUs (stock-keeping units) are entering and exiting the warehouse. Getting a real-time view empowers them to order the right quantities to the right location, improving shelf confidence so operations can proceed without delay or error.
It creates a record every time a business fulfills orders, ensuring accurate data to maintain the balance of costs and inventory. Businesses can also set separate reorder points and reorder methods if they handle multiple warehouses. Admins can restrict user access to specific locations, either for security purposes or to minimize the consequences of human fallibility.
It also features barcode software to create barcodes and design labels, eliminating manual entry for purchase requests, stock transfers, adjustments, and so on. Users can transform their smartphones into intelligent scanners with the dedicated mobile app of inFlow. They can design their barcode labels or buy the official GS1 barcodes from the inFlow Barcode Shop.
Businesses can also track their assembly process with inFlow. The inventory management software can show which parts make an assembly, how many are needed, and the manufacturing cost. Overall, it is a comprehensive inventory, sales, and purchasing solution.
5 Cin7 Core
Overview
Cin7 Core is designed for manufacturers and product sellers. It gives them the power to manage their businesses in one place and scale as market demands grow and the customer base expands. It contains modules for inventory management, point of sale, B2B portal, accounting efficiency, and robust reporting.
It can also integrate with over 40 software tools and offers an API for custom integration. It also has dedicated mobile apps so the production, warehouse, and sales teams can manage supply and inventory from their smartphones. It is trusted by over 8000 customers, helping them improve their supply chain and minimize inventory loss.
Features
Like other cloud-based solutions, Cin7 provides real-time inventory insights so businesses can see every component and product across every inventory operation. From livestock levels to COGs (cost of goods sold), users can access accurate data to make the best decisions.
Cin7 can also improve warehouse efficiency through barcode scans. Users can automatically add inventory deals, streamlining picking and packing operations. They can also easily track transfers between retail locations.
The inventory management software can help businesses manage multiple locations to keep their inventories well-organized and well-documented. They can identify the parts and raw materials unnecessary for assembly, lowering inventory carrying costs while achieving successful inventory management.
Conclusion
Businesses face many challenges in managing inventory, like deadstock, inventory shrinkage, out-of-stock, or changes in demand. Invest in one of the top 5 inventory management software in 2023 to improve planning and forecasting. They can help control inventory costs and boost efficiency, compounding the efforts made by business teams to thrive and succeed in a competitive market.
