Barcode System for Inventory Management Outsources Complex Function

From small mom-and-pop businesses to global corporations, nearly every organization has inventory to track and manage. A barcode system for inventory management can greatly simplify your operations, increase your efficiency, and save you significant and measurable time and money.

Inventory vs. Asset Management

First, what is inventory management? The term is often used interchangeably with fixed asset management, but they’re different concepts. Fixed asset management involves tracking and maintaining your company’s physical assets and equipment including laptops, monitors, servers and mobile devices, vehicles, office furniture, machines, office space and other fixed assets that aren’t sold for profit, but allows a company to conduct business. Inventory management, on the other hand, is the process of tracking and monitoring those items that do earn you a profit – your raw materials, parts/components, and finished products, and the stocking and processing of those items.

The Challenges of Managing Inventory

For every organization, determining the right amount of inventory is challenging. Overestimate your needs, and you end up with inventory that sits on the shelf, expires and/or ends up being discounted or discarded. Underestimate your needs, and you end up with dissatisfied customers who tell their friends about their bad experience and aren’t likely to return. Trial, error and guesswork are expensive. And yet, such methods are what companies often rely upon when they’re using manual processes for inventory management. A barcode system for inventory management helps organizations determine optimal times for reordering, as well as how much to order and where to store that inventory. Those decisions can be especially difficult for companies that manage inventory among multiple locations and/or channels. For example, you may have one location in need of inventory, and you want to determine whether another location has available inventory that can be transferred to that location. A formal system enables you to pinpoint where that available inventory is located and then set up the transfer, as opposed to the old system of chasing down inventory through time-consuming phone calls and emails.

Calculating the value of your inventory is another challenging and incredibly time-consuming task, and attempting to perform this function yourself can invite mistakes. Inventory management software determines the actual value of your inventory based on factors including the item’s length of use, present condition, maintenance history and usefulness.

Outsourcing: The Advantages

With a barcode system for inventory management, companies are able to outsource all of these functions to a platform that effectively eliminates the risk of human error, provides real-time, accurate data and gives business owners peace of mind knowing they’re making informed decisions about their inventory needs.

You’re likely using some kind of process already to track and manage your fixed assets, as well. The great news is that technology makes it possible for you to use the same platform for both your inventory and asset management. Asset Panda’s best-in-class solution combines those functions in a simple, yet incredibly powerful app that includes a mobile barcode scanner and eliminates the need to purchase and carry additional hardware. Using your smartphone or tablet, you can manage multiple locations, easily identify and locate inventory quantities, seamlessly import data from your existing spreadsheets, quickly calculate appreciation and depreciation values, and increase tax and insurance accuracy, among numerous other benefits. Plus your data syncs with the cloud, so it’s in real-time, all the time.