Inventory Management Help

[pen4hyr]

Hi everyone. It's been a long time since I've been to this message board. Life got hectic for a long time and I totally forgot that I had just started getting active here. Well, time to pick up where I left off.

I need some way to manage inventory. My parents (who had the business before me), did it all manually, deciding what needed re-ordering by just looking around, did not keep track of everything, or if they did keep track of it, everything seemed to be in a different place or within a different piece of software.

I need to change/fix this. Quick background again, I own a small specialty retail business. We do personalized printing (invitations & announcements). We also sell blank stock that customers can print themselves. We carry inventory on lots of our products. I need something that I can start using to keep track of what we have, what we're short of, what's been selling and what's been sitting on the shelves collecting dust. I want this application to make ordering more stock easier (automatically populate a re-order form of some sort to fax to the manufacturer) and to just give me some kind of idea of what we have and/or what we need to get more of.

The other thing I think I need is that it's hosted or web-based. We are not networked yet (and don't have the money to change that right now) but I want my various employees to have access to the application from their individual computers...as we are all constantly grabbing 1 or 2 items at will, and if the software is going to be anywhere near accurate, we need it to be easily accessible so my employees can update the numbers as they change the quantity on hand.

I currently use Entellium's eSalesForce hosted application for my CRM, and I've found that to be a great product. So I think what i"m looking for is something similar but for inventory control

That was probably wayyyy too long of a post to ask my question, but hopefully some of you have read it the whole way through. It's very late, I'm very tired....so I fear this post is full of types and confusing sentences, but it's the best I can do right now. I'll check back in morning and see if I need to do some major editing or re-post my inquiry.

Thanks in advance to anyone that can help.

-Matt

[IndiVision Studios]

Sorry if I mis-read but are you looking for software that will manage your online inventory as well as your brick & mortar stock?

[orion_joel]

The biggest question i see here, is if you have more then one computer, and are currently not networked, how are you accessing a hosted application. If you are using a dialup or internet connection for each computer then the money you save by getting rid of that system should easily pay the cost within a month or two to install a network.

A network is not overally complicated to get going if you have network connection available in each computer, buy a small switch and if you are not to concerned about seeing the cables it could almost be DIY.

However to your question. One potential option which came to mind from IndiVision Studios question was why not use an online store that is hosted. This actually opens another avenue for you as well. Using a script like Zan Cart or OS commerce, or there is some that you can pay a small fee to use will allow you to maintain a inventory, which can be access through online access, it would mean each sale would need to be processed through the online system, however it would give you a new way for your customers to order blank stock from you by an online store.

I don't see that it would be to hard if it is not already included to add a low stock warning, however that would depend on the software used.

[pen4hyr]

Originally Posted by IndiVision Studios

Sorry if I mis-read but are you looking for software that will manage your online inventory as well as your brick & mortar stock?

Yes, that's one of the features I'd like.

[pen4hyr]

In regards to orion_joel's reply...

We access our hosted application (Entellium's CRM) via the internet. Each person working has their own login username & password, and is always logged into it. I'm not sure how we would save any money by not continuing to do it this way. We just have one broadband account, and each computer is connected to it, either via an ethernet cable or a wi-fi. The only cost is the broadband account (DSL).

My online shore (shopping cart software) IS hosted. My store is hosted via 3dCart . And yes, it does have it's own inventory management, but there it's not made to integrate my brick & mortar store.

I think I didn't ask the question correctly...like I said, it was late & I was super tired. What i'd like is a web-based (hosted) inventory management software application to keep track of my inventory, both in my Brick & Mortar store as well as the online store (since both stores share the same inventory). I'm also okay if it doesn't work directly with the online store software right now, as i can always do a daily export/import to keep the two inventories matching.

Basically, I'm looking for something similar to this software Visual Inventory. I'd like to find more than just this one, so that I have some choices in pricing, features, etc. I also like to hear from people that have experience with the particular products, as that way I can get useful feedback based on experience, and not just generic "reviews".


Hopefully that cleared it up a bit. For some reason, I'm having a real hard time explaining what I want. Thanks again for the replies thus far, and I look forward to getting more.

-Matt

[orion_joel]

If your computer's are set-up as you say then you really are pretty much networked, it would just take changing some settings on each computer so that they are all similiar. from my experience it would take computer techncian not very long to setup each computer so they were all able to access any system you put in.

[pen4hyr]

hmmm...thanks orion. Now I guess I gotta get a computer guy over here to see what's possible.

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

-M

[Allectus]

One thing business owners need to respect is that technology is not always the solution for business issues.

Think about it. Technology (software) is only as good as the information placed into it.

In other words, you have to maintain some semblance of manual counts wether you want to or not.

Even if you are a web-based business, you must maintain physical counts of whatever it is you sell.

I have seen hundreds of businesses go bankrupt because they misunderstand the value of physical inventory counts.

There is no way around physical counts.

The best way and the only way is to count your inventory daily or weekly relative to the velocity of sales.

You just have to count it.

Allectus LLC

[Egbert]

I would first do a physical inventory, it can be tedious and time consuming but it's the only way to get an accurate count.
Once you have that starting point then enter that data into your computer system.
If you don't have a system that can keep track of inventory when it gets sold/returned, then I suggest you create a spreadsheet.
In this spreadsheet you should list the part number/description and and quantity on hand after you have taken the physical inventory.
Then, at the end of every day you need to get all the sales figures of what was sold and returned. You then update your spreadsheet with the most current numbers.
This way is very time consuming!!!



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