In business, you better know where your materials are. When you invest money in buying and selling products, understanding their movement is quite important. Inventory management is simply the goods and materials you involve in at a particular time in your business. By barcode inventory tracking system, you can monitor and track the movement of inventory in the supply chain.

Technological advancement has led to numerous possibilities for effective inventory control. Consequently, manual recording and storage of data are now obsolete. Technowave provides automatic data collection products and solutions that will let you have a grip on managing and controlling your inventory. It adopts the barcoding system that revolutionised the labelling process over the years.

Why is Inventory management & tracking essential in your business?

An efficient inventory management system is only possible if you track down stock levels accurately. Regardless of how big or small your company is, purchasing inventory will be an enormous part of your investment. You will never know how much capital you waste without being aware of it.

Inventory control will prevent your business from being understocked or overstocked. It’s always good when you know how little or more you need to bring to the market. Moreover, you can stop asset thefts, frauds, and mishandling by employees. If you make errors when you track down inventory, it can amplify the discrepancies in data handling. Hence, there is a need for data-driven and accurate inventory tracking.

What are different accounting methods adopted in Inventory management & tracking?

There are two mutually exclusive ways to track your inventory: periodic and perpetual. In periodic inventory systems, the accounting is over a particular interval as per your wish. Whereas in a perpetual inventory system, the same is according to the sales of your inventory. Perpetual accounting is more reliable as it’s automatic and practical when more inventory is involved. It uses an inventory management system at the point of sales (POS ), thus giving better stock control.

What are the principles associated with an Inventory management & tracking system?

The main objective of an inventory tracking system is inventory optimisation. You must ensure that the warehouse has sufficient inventory for customer demand, not excess or short of it. To satisfy this intention, they have to follow these principles:

1. High accuracy: Your inventory tracking system must assure you as little error as possible with the original record of data.
2. Track locations in real-time: It must allow you to track where exactly the materials are in the warehouse. Additionally, it must show you how many units of material are stored in that particular space.
3. Security: Inventory must be securely transferred in the supply chain. If by chance you identify a damaged one, removal and replacing should be quick enough. It is equally important that you analyse the reason for the damage so you can stop a recurrence.
4. Forecasting demand: A proper understanding of market trends and timing of stock updates will let you predict the amount of inventory you must invest. Better combine these with the historical data analysis of the company to optimise the result. Thus, proper end-item stocking and raw material sourcing can assure profitability.

What methods can you use to track inventory?

1. Card system: The oldest method was to manual data entry into a card system called cardex. It involves writing down the number of products purchased and sold into two separate columns and balanced. This system is obsolete now.
2. Excel spreadsheets: With improvement in technology, paper documents were replaced by spreadsheets. These are still very much in use for small businesses.
3. Barcodes: Digitization was a game-changer in the business field. Instead of manually recording every detail of the product you have, barcodes can be read with the use of a proper scanner in no time. They can be of two types: 1D (linear) and 2D. 1D has only parallel lines with spaces and scanners can read them only in the horizontal direction. On the contrary, 2D has shapes and patterns and scanners can read them both horizontally and vertically.
4. RFID: Radio Frequency Identification technology uses electronic product code, which is a chip attached to antennas. Though both barcodes and RFID are tags to identify products, they have a different reading by scanners.

Why is barcode inventory tracking system so popular?

Barcode system is everywhere now – in every process of inventory management. And rightly so, as it can exercise better control over the large data of your inventory. It eliminates chances of human error from manual entry. You can track any of your products or batch of products from their serial numbers. An uninterrupted workflow is acquired with better return or replacement policies. In brief, you can locate and analyse your goods anywhere in the warehouse or the supply chain with a simple database search.

What are the tools you need for a sound barcode inventory tracking system?

A barcode system has two main components- hardware and software. By hardware components, we mean barcode printers and scanners. Firstly, you need an idea of what kind of barcode you want on your inventory. You may choose the most viable barcode type by considering the quantity and type of data associated with it, the packaging material, space available in the packaging for the barcode, the character set involved, and the place where the product is scanned. An appropriate barcode printer will help you generate your custom labels. Barcode scanners read these labels and transfer the data to a computer system.

A barcode software receives, stores, and access inventory data. In general, it maps the journey of your inventory to a computer system. Thus it automates your entire workflow, updating itself at each stage. With perfect sync with the hardware, you can erase possible errors. In addition, it also integrates with either your Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) program or the accounting system.

What are the features you must look for in barcode inventory software?

Choosing barcode software is not as easy as it sounds. Of all the options available, select that could meet your service requirement. But still, you can check for features in them. Some of the crucial elements a barcode inventory software should have are :

• Real-time reporting
• Simple user interface
• Flexible interactions
• Shortage alerts and notifications
• End-to-end item tracing
• Adherence to regulatory compliance
• Visibility in transactions

Conclusion

Inventory is the heart of your business. Hence, an efficient barcode inventory tracking system can smoothen your business operations. Its worth, in the long run, should not be overlooked. Implementing compatible barcode hardware and software will reap real rewards. To sum up, you need an inventory specialist who can guide you through barcode products and solutions. Technowave associates with top global brands like Datalogic and Zebra for their range of barcode scanners and printers to meet the needs of various industries. We use easyTRACK inventory tracking software, which is dedicated to maximising your return on investments. Being able to use both barcode and RFID technologies makes it a unique and powerful tool. Our service can support retail industries like fashion retail, supermarkets/hypermarkets, departmental stores, jewellery, watches and whatnot.