If you are ramping up any kind of business selling products, you might encounter inventory management.

What is inventory?

Inventory is nothing but accounting for the items whether they are components of a product, parts essential to make a product, or ready-to-sell products.

What is stock?

When you accumulate ready-to-sell products in your warehouse or storage places, it is termed as stock.

Example:

For instance, screws, nails, and wood logs along with wooden chairs and tables are inventory of wooden furniture products. Out of these, chairs and tables are ready to sell products. Thus, those are stocks. Whereas, the rest of the components used in the production of chairs and tables are inventory.

Types of Inventory:

Every business sells or produces unique products. Therefore, their inventory also remains unique. However, based on general classifications, we can say that there are four types of inventories:

1. Raw Materials
2. WIP (Work In Progress)
3. Finished Goods
4. MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations)

Other types of inventory include:

• Components
• Packing materials
• Decoupling inventory for the manufacturing industry
• Cycle inventory
• Service inventory
• Book or theoretical inventory
• Transit inventory
• Excess inventory

Difference between Inventory and Stock:

Now, you have clarity regarding stock and inventory. Keep in mind, that we will go ahead to look at the software to help us count stock and inventory as per needs. We will focus on the inventory software only useful for small businesses.

Now, we have a trivial question.

Why should a business use an inventory management system?

I can describe multiple benefits of inventory management software in your business. However, the given main reasons are enough to advocate your buying decision.

1. Manual listings can result in some errors in the case of inventory management.
2. Automated inventory updates mean saving time, money, and resources on doing the same manually.
3. Inventory management software leads the business to order the required items in advance and save them from 'Unavailable' tags. Hence, the revenue loss.
4. It also saves from creating a dump of unnecessary items before they get out of stock.
5. With inventory management, you can improve stock management efficiency that leaves a good impact on shipping or order management.

Inventory Management System Software for Small Businesses

Let’s see some best inventory management system software at a glance.

Zoho Inventory: Free and for Everyone

It is a highly popular and used inventory management system software in the world for eCommerce to brick stores. It has a free plan with limited feature access. Different premium plans are available with customized features.

Pros:

• You can manage multiple channels of inventory.
• It lets you manage all affairs of your warehouse or factory right from manufacturing to stock management.
• It works with multiple currencies and new languages.
• It lets you monitor expiry dates automatically on the entire batch/order.
• It offers building, composing, and knitting tools.
• It offers a mobile app

Cons:

• It is missing returns management.
• It also missing rental management, if needed.

Features:

• They offer apps for iOS and Android platforms.
• You can add items.
• Manage orders including tracking.
• Examine stocks in the warehouse.
• Fulfill or deliver orders from the back-end or smart devices too.

User Experience:

• Easy to use
• Intuitive navigation and user interface
• Support is available at three levels

For Whom?

• All eCommerce merchants
• Retailers
• Wholesalers
• MNC
• Warehouses/storage owners
• Assemblers and manufacturers

Sales Channels:

• Zoho Commerce
• Amazon
• Etsy
• eBay
• Shopify
• More with API integration

Integration:

• Two accounting platforms
• Ten shopping carts
• Seven CRM platforms
• 10+ shopping cart platforms
• 30+ shipping carriers
• Eight payment processors
• Slack

Orderhive Inventory: Best for Every Ecommerce

It is an excellent choice for any scale of your eCommerce business or online drop shipping storefront. Many SaaS-platform-based eCommerce solutions come with expensive built-in inventory management. In such cases, you can use the Orderhive inventory management solution and achieve good results.

Pros:

• You can find a free plan for users on the Shopify platform.
• You’ll have centralized inventory across multiple channels.
• Get workflow automation as the best functionality on the Orderhive.
• They offer 20/6 support through any means including online chat and phone calls.

Cons:

• Its Android-only app is poorly rated in the market.
• It has some problems with particular integration.

Features:

Its best features include:

• It is helping in managing variants through bundling.
• It offers serialized inventory.

User Experience:

It has an intuitive user interface.

For Whom?

• Ecommerce merchants
• Dropshipping businesses

Sales Channels:

• WooCommerce
• Magento
• BigCommerce
• Amazon
• Shopify

Integration:

• 10 CRM Platforms
• Three Payment Processors
• Eight Shopping Carts
• Four POS Systems
• 19 Marketing Automation
• 60+ Shipping Services

Orders Inventory: Best for Repair Shop

Pros:

• It is a superb choice for solopreneurs and micro-businesses.
• It has specialized tools for SMBs, including auto-service centers, plumbers, HVAC repairers, electricians, etc.
• Tracking for the property.
• Location tracking

Cons:

• It’s missing strong vendor management and purchase order functions.
• The app is focusing on orders rather than inventory.

Features:

• Exceptional tasks management.
• Tracking tools with capabilities to include customer items.
• Write off inventory in the work order.

User Experience:

• Easy-to-use interface.
• Self-guided instructions
• Knowledge-base

For Whom?

• All small vendors
• Various repairing shops

The present market scenario tells us that there are dozens of such inventory management tools available for different kinds of businesses and purposes. Unfortunately, each business is unique. If yours is more, you might face difficulty in using standard inventory management solutions in the market.

We have a solution to it! IIH Global is a renowned software development company working on various software solutions for a long and is now ready to meet your expectations through custom software development services.

Looking for custom software development services let's have a arrange a meeting or get in touch with us.