Businesses evolve over time… Your company may have started out with a single desktop computer and a couple of spreadsheets to keep track of day-to-day operations. As the company grew, so did the need for office space, multiple phone lines, and a server to support business software. During this growth you may not have realized the point in which you outgrew your current systems and procedures, and became accustomed to inaccuracies.

Do any of these inventory control scenarios sound familiar?

• You record transactions on paper and enter them into the computer later… (Learning to cope with the delay and the occasional re-keying errors.)
• You rely on staff that “just knows” where the inventory is because they have been with the company for a long time... (And you live in fear of that key person leaving.)
• You “manage” inventory on white boards, clipboards, notebook paper or Post-it notes… (And you never really know if your numbers are accurate.)
• You retype your inventory activity records into Excel spreadsheets or Access databases… (And you have a hard time reconciling them with your accounting balance sheet.)
• You ship the wrong goods to customers… (Incurring additional costs fixing the mistake, resending the correct item and decreasing customer service levels… not to mention the labor costs involved in each of these.)

If your inventory is processed manually it is highly likely that you are paying for large amounts of wasted time, as well as incurring unnecessary errors within your system. Furthermore, a manual process can also be detrimental in other ways. For example:

• You can’t rely on the numbers within your system due to delays in entering inventory receipts, movements or shipments.
• Your frustration is growing as you encounter the unavoidable data entry errors.
• You have stacks of reconciliation issues to resolve.
• You struggle to gain staff accountability for the inventory accuracy.
• You’ve delayed projects, jobs, or shipments because of unexpected inventory unavailability.
• You are forced to tolerate higher shipping costs to get new inventory in a hurry.
• Although you occasionally get lucky and find inventory that you wrote-off the year before, nowyou can’t use it without creating another inventory problem,
• You spend hours troubleshooting payables because receipts are recorded incorrectly or perhapsnot at all.
• You ship the wrong item to a customer because you have no workable validation process.
• You have delays in invoicing your customers because you can’t keep up with the paperwork.

If these sound all too familiar – it might be time to consider an Inventory Software System to help you improve your operation and get back on track. Download our white paper on what to consider when selecting an Inventory Management System.