Inventory management software: Excel, off-the-shelf or custom?

A product showing as available for sale but missing from the warehouse, discrepancies at stock counts, not knowing when a product will run out… All of these come from stock information not being kept in a single, up-to-date place. Inventory management software records every product movement and shows the current state of your stock. To choose the right software, start by looking at how complex the stock you manage is.

#What does inventory management software do?

• Movement records: Purchases, sales, returns, wastage and transfers between warehouses; the date of each movement and who made it.
• Live stock levels: The current quantity of each product and, where relevant, in each warehouse and branch.
• Low-stock alerts: Notifications for products that fall below a set quantity.
• Variant and batch tracking: Options such as size and colour and, where needed, batch or expiry date.
• Reports: Best sellers, products that haven't moved for a long time, goods in and out by period.

#How long is Excel enough for stock tracking?

If you have a small number of products and one person updates the stock, an Excel template is a sensible start. It begins to fall short when:

• Several people update it at the same time and nobody knows which version of the file is correct.
• Stock doesn't go down automatically when a sale is made; every sale is entered by hand.
• Past movements get lost, so there is no answer to the question “why is this product short?”
• A single formula error silently makes the whole sheet wrong.

#Excel, off-the-shelf software and custom software

#Barcode inventory tracking

Barcodes improve both speed and accuracy: receiving goods, sales and stock counts take a single scan, and the error of picking the wrong product disappears. You can use a barcode scanner, or in a web-based panel a phone camera can act as the scanner. If your products don't carry a manufacturer barcode, the software can generate its own barcodes and print labels.

#Integrations: where the real difference lies

• Online store and marketplaces: Whichever channel a sale comes from, stock is deducted in one place and products you don't have aren't sold. We cover managing channels together in marketplace vs your own online store.
• Accounting and e-invoicing: Sales and purchase documents aren't entered twice.
• Shipping: Shipped products are deducted from stock and added back when a return arrives.
• Suppliers: An order list is prepared for products that drop to the critical level.

#Questions for making the right choice

1. How many products and variants do you have, and in how many warehouses or branches are they kept?
2. How many people will update the stock, and from which devices?
3. Which channels do your sales come from?
4. Do you need batch, serial number or expiry date tracking?
5. Which reports do you want to look at every week?

#Where to start

Starting with Excel when you have one user and a few products is fine. As the number of channels and users grows, move to off-the-shelf software; if your workflow or integrations are specific to you, move to a panel built for you. We build admin panels that bring stock, order and customer management together on one screen; if you also sell online, see our e-commerce service and our guide to what you need to start an online store.