Top 10 Inventory Management Control Tips

When speaking with business owners, we are constantly asked “What is the best way to manage my inventory control?”

We understand that everyone wants to manage their inventory efficiently to maximise profits! So, we have compiled a 10 top list of the most efficient ways of ensuring accurate inventory control

Have a system – Do not have your entire inventory control system dependent on one staff member. What if they leave? This means your system also leaves with them! Have a good EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) system and know how to use it.
Have one person responsible for overseeing your inventory control – Not to contradict point one, the main word being responsible. This person will take ownership of the process and is responsible for tweaking the system, as opposed to one person doing the count, data entry, reporting etc.
Have all of your stock, live on your inventory management system – this can take some effort with some software and is unique to the industry that your in, although if your using EasyCount to gather the count data, this is kept simple!
Have your staff involved in the inventory control process – especially when it comes to dealing with wastage, purchases, sales, credits and non-barcoded products. it further backs up point number 2
Organise a proper stocktaking schedule – at the minimum at least monthly stocktakes/inventory counts a year so as to tie in with management accounts. If your a food business (and depending on your turnover and the percentage of food is in your turnover) weekly management of this is essential as a small change in practice can change your gross margin

Set-up a schedule for cycle counts – such as a smaller monthly inventory count of certain departments.
Know your shrinkage! (Unexplained losses through theft, wastage, breakages etc) the above two points will help you with this.
Go electronic – Ditch the pens, papers and Excel documents! Switch over to a digital inventory method such as EasyCount.
Count your products accurately – such as using the correct unit of measure like boxes, cases, bags, pack, each, etc reduces the ambiguity around counting inventory in the first place, especially to those that are counting inventory for the first time
Managing your inventory efficiently allows you to have; the best margins, the lowest cost prices, the lowest amount of waste and gives you more time to focus on other aspects of your business.

Struggling with adapting all of this to your inventory control methods and would like some assistance? Give us a shout! Godigitally.io can work with you in creating a system that works for your business.

Keeping your stocktakes in-house with Digitally is considerably cheaper than an external service. You’ll reduce stocktaking times by up to 68%, have an instant valuation of your counted stock and see where your waste is. All you need is your own mobile device to get going, no external hardware is required. Manage your inventory with our stocktaking software! You can export the count into any other format you require for use elsewhere.