Tired of spreadsheets? Looking for alternatives to manage your inventory? An automated inventory system helps you break free of time-consuming processes and get fast, reliable data that’s easy to share.
What Is an Automated Inventory System?
An automated inventory system is a method of analyzing and tracking your products or services through a combination of inventory management software, QR codes or barcodes, and related technology. This almost always saves businesses time, money and stress.
How Does It Work?
- Generate barcodes or QR codes for your products, if they don’t exist already.
- Scan the barcodes or QR codes into inventory management software.
- Access inventory status in the automated system to update inventory, scan items in and out, print reports, and review and share information instantly.
What Are the Advantages of an Automated Inventory System?
Automated inventory outperforms and outlasts even the most comprehensive inventory spreadsheet.
Increases Accuracy
Data entry mistakes, confusion with equations and formulas, and copying and pasting blunders are typical spreadsheet errors. An automated inventory minimizes manual processes and errors in several ways that aren’t limited to spreadsheets:
- Inventory quantities are automatically updated when items are checked in or out, purchased, sold, or discontinued.
- You’ll access products or services in the automated inventory system by barcode or QR code and avoid updating—or extracting information from—an incorrect item.
- When you scan a barcode or QR code, it instantly saves information about your product or service. And the inventory management software will back up and sync your data in cloud storage.
Saves Time
You can spend hours entering, analyzing, and updating data on a spreadsheet. An automated inventory system is full of time-saving features:
- Tracks data across multiple business locations
- Creates reports that you can quickly sort or customize
- Uses barcodes or QR codes for fast product uploads and easy updates
Provides Real-Time Status
You probably can’t count the times you’ve needed to add the latest figures to a spreadsheet before you could print a report. An automated inventory system eliminates that step. It’s a shortcut to current information that you can easily customize and share. Some features include:
- Get real-time, unlimited access to details about your inventory
- Access data from anywhere
- Give limited or full access to data and reports to team members or customers
Improves Customer and Employee Satisfaction
Clear communication improves customer satisfaction. Inventory management software helps you give customers accurate information on the status of the products or services they want or have already purchased from you. It also makes your employees’ jobs way easier, freeing up valuable time to work on other important projects.
- Stock alerts – Helps you avoid running out of items, submitting rush orders, and delaying order fulfillment.
- Date reminders – You can schedule reminders to reorder items, follow-up with a customer, or perform maintenance. And you can share the reminders with others.
- Item location – Items that are in another warehouse, in use at an exhibit, or in transit, can be tracked easily.
Scales with Your Business
If you’re tracking and analyzing inventory manually, you’ll need to expand your spreadsheets with your business. But the time required to do it can be overwhelming. An automated inventory system is easy to upgrade as your business expands.
Sortly’s inventory management software is easy to use. Some of its features include the ability to:
- Scan existing QR codes or barcodes with the camera on your tablet or smartphone, or a Bluetooth scanner
- Generate barcodes or QR codes for new, unique, or unlabeled items
- Print barcodes or QR codes
- Upload product photos
- Customize access for other users
Automate and simplify your inventory processes. Get a free trial of Sortly.
