Small businesses tend to have more trouble with inventory management than large-scale businesses. And that’s not because they have more goods to deal with but more specifics to deal with, i.e., management tips and procedures. A lacking here will be causing more damage to their sustainability as compared to a large-scale business.

On the contrary, paying it the due attention and tackling it strategically will only upscale your business and level up your profits. Here, in this compilation, we’ll look at a few quick tips for kick starting the whole process.

 

What Is Inventory Management?

Inventory refers to the collection of items or stock.  In the business world, inventory management defines the practice of overseeing and supervising a company’s inventory.

Now, this inventory can comprise anything from pens to complex chemicals.  A company’s inventory can include both raw materials and refined, polished products.

Usually, it is the supply chain manager or department’s role to ensure inventory is in good shape.  The manager must ensure that the inventory has the right quantity and type of stock at the right place as well as cost.

Everything needs to be accurate for a symphonic process. Inventory managers may work alone or in a complete team. It depends on the largeness and complexity of an inventory.

 

How to Take Inventory of Your Small Business?

Now, coming to the gist of our post, here are the top seven tips to effectively take management of your small business.

 1. Be as Specific as Possible

Well, it may sound tedious, but the best way to address inventory issues is to keep a record of all the products that you sell or offer. From the actual product to each of its variants, you need to enlist every item separately. Also, the listing does not only involve the name, department, and category. It also involves other details, including supplier ID, tax rate, current quantity, sales price, cost per item, recommended order, etc.

We encourage you to add on as many possible relevant categorizations as possible. Initially, they may require too much input, but later on, this data will prove to be highly helpful in locating the products instantaneously and addressing newer product-associated issues efficiently.

 

 2. Back Your Decisions with Data

Inventory maintenance is not only associated with the current goods in stock. It also forms a deep link with the goods to come. By that, we mean that your current inventory’s incoming and out-going gives you solid data about the profit margin of certain products, their frequency of sales, and inventory turnover rate.

Thus, providing you a basis for future decisions. Hence, when restocking inventory, you can use this data to determine which goods are worth investing in and which ones should have a lower share.

 

 3. Opt for Reorder Alerts

If you find your inventory growing bigger by the day, you may want to set up a reorder trigger. That’s because it often becomes difficult to keep track of the increasing or decreasing quantity of the goods in stock. Most POS systems or product management tools allow users to set up an alert for certain stock levels. As soon as your inventory hits that limit, it will alert you about the need for repurchase.

 

 4. Make Effective Use of Product Management Tools

Well, you are not planning to maintain your directory of goods manually. Are you? It’s going to cost you the whole of your mental peace! On average, a small business at least offers 10-100 products. Each of these products may have multiple variants, and of course, a good quantity.

Manually, keeping track of all these is almost impossible, and hence we advise you to make use of digital product management tools. With these, you will have lower chances of errors in your recorded data and will be able to easily & automatically update the product catalog.

 

  5. Install Quad Monitor Stands

As the name indicates, a quad monitor stand allows you to view four monitors at one time. It is an innovative and unique technology aimed at both small-scale and large-scale businesses

By installing it, you or your security staff can keep a close eye on the inventory. Hence, enabling them to identify any shoplifting, employee theft, or damage incidents.

 

 6. Look out for Inventory Shrinkage

Finding the stock reduced can be an alarming sign for your store or small business. The continuation of this finding can cause you millions-worth of money!

So, why did the stock reduce? There can be multiple reasons for it.  For example, if you have a retail shop, the stock may get less due to shoplifting, supplier mistake, or employee theft. Over time, the loss of products can build up, costing you more than you would ever imagine!

This stock reduction also gets termed as inventory shrinkage in the business world.  Preventing this is a major aspect of inventory management.  You can avoid shrinkage by installing security cameras and hiring staff.

 

 7. Recheck for Errors

You may have checked and counted the received stock yourself manually. However, it would certainly be worth it to give the inventory a recheck.

These rechecking sessions can help you uncover issues, such as employee theft or shoplifting. Now,  it is not necessary to haul out all the stock and count it again.  What you can do is divide the inventory into portions and check one at a time.

To get more organized, you can also create an inventory count recheck routine.  It can be quarterly, monthly, or annually.

 

 

Shawn Mack is a content writer who offers ghostwriting, copy-writing, and blogging services. His educational background in business and technical field has given him a broad base from which to approach many topics. He is also fond of writing interesting articles on technology & digital marketing related topics.