Why Inventory Software Is Not One-Size-Fits-All

Unless you are a one man show, chances are you have inventory to track and maintain. While it's easy to believe that only retail and product based businesses need tools to help them keep track of their inventory, it simply isn't true. The Small Business Association lists poor inventory management in the top ten reasons why small businesses fail. While not tracking inventory might not be as big of a problem for mid- to large-sized companies, it can still cause a variety of problems for your business.

Your company might not be tracking inventory, but have enough assets to start doing so. If you or your employees have had a hard time tracking down the tools you need to do your job, it might be time to start tracking your inventory.

Before you start, you need to create an inventory tracking plan. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to tracking plans. Depending on the size of your company, the sorts of items you need to track, and the distance each of those items can travel, you'll need different tools to track your company's assets.

While you might be tempted to track your goods by hand, or even use spreadsheets, consider the down sides of doing so. Manual tracking is subject a variety of errors and takes a lot of effort to maintain, especially if you haven't done any tracking before. The effort and time it takes to build a manual tracking habit will not be worth the work you'll save by doing so.

Even using a spreadsheet system can be problematic. While there are several asset tracking templates you can use, they take a lot of time to change so that they will work with your company. If you aren't familiar with Excel or other spreadsheet software, you'll also have to put in the time to learn the basics and functions of the program.

Inventory software is a much better solution to the tracking issue than relying on a spreadsheet or manual tracking. However, not all programs are created equal. You might be tempted to go with whatever program seems cheapest, or even to go for free programs. This might work if you have minimal assets to track, but the more inventory you have on hand, the more you need something that works for you, instead of something you have to make work.

While the price of investing in such software can give companies reason to pause, Entrepreneur shows that companies who buy tracking programs see a profit increase of 20-50%.

You shouldn't have to do a lot of work to make inventory software work for you. After all, the point of a software is to make your life easier, not to give you more work to do.

That's where Asset Panda comes in. We realize the importance of having a software that does exactly what you need it to do, so we made our platform flexible and easily configurable. Our program was made for mid-sized companies who don't have a huge budget to spend on tracking inventory, so you won't have to break the bank to get your inventory better organized and documented.

Want to see why we think our program is so easy to use that a panda could do it? Sign up for a free guided tour today!