Benefits of Cloud-Based Applications Over Traditional Inventory Management

The traditional methods of inventory management involved a lot of time. It was necessary to take stock counts at the end of every working week (or other time frame), compile the data for each inventory item and all the sales information, as well as perform many other data compiling activities. Anybody who has had to do this will understand the amount of time that all of these activities take. However, not only is it time consuming, but also it’s open to human error. Many businesses will understand the frustrations of having entered in wrong data to Excel spreadsheet due to a simple typing error. Suddenly you have 100 of items in stock when you intended to input the value 10.

All of this can be eliminated with cloud-based inventory software. Cloud-based inventory control application allows business owners to keep track of their inventory in real-time. The software allows them to access this real-time inventory information in order to make business decisions.

By eliminating the time cost associated with the traditional methods of inventory management, business owners can spend their time analyzing the data that they have at their disposal in the cloud-based inventory control application. There is also a cost benefit in that this type of software usually offers a subscription payment that doesn’t vary in price. The traditional method of counting stock and compiling data had a cost in man-hours associated with it. This was wasted employee time that can now be put to better use.

Another benefit of cloud-based applications is the accessibility of the information. Because these types of apps are cloud-based, busy business owners can access them from any place where there’s Internet access, as well as on the go. This allows small business owners, who operate over a number of different premises, to access real-time information for each premise’s inventory. In turn, they can send purchase orders for stock that they are low on and they can use the sales data to determine which products are most profitable and which products can be termed “obsolete” and abandoned.

There is no doubt that a cloud-based inventory control application offers more to small business owners than any known traditional methods. Not only does it allow them to save money, but it also allows them to increase profitability of their inventory and their business.