Mobile inventory management technology now complements traditional inventory solutions, helping businesses across industries optimize their stock levels and track products more easily. Embracing a mobile-friendly multichannel inventory management app can not only improve customer satisfaction, but also give you an edge over your competitors. After all, nobody likes long checkout lines or canceled orders, and mobile inventory management helps you deal with those. Discover below the best practices that will help your mobile inventory management process become a success.
Integrate your inventory management app with your inventory system
You don’t want to be using two separate inventory management systems, one for mobile and one for desktop. This complicates stock management unnecessarily and gives rise to data aggregation and analysis issue. In other words, choose an inventory control and planning solution that is mobile friendly. Ideally, you will want a solution that can be accessed in the cloud on any device as well as run as a mobile app on both Android and iPhone, like DataQlick.
Track user access for each mobile device
By knowing who can access your inventory on mobile and when, you can eliminate security vulnerabilities, better control your inventory data, and minimize any misunderstandings related to purchase orders, re-order points, or managed assemblies for bundles and kits. It also helps maintain accurate inventory practices across locations and warehouses. The simplest way to do this is to manually grant access to your inventory app. To maintain accurate device status and purpose, keep an up to date list of all users.
Determine and assign responsibilities
A mobile inventory control and planning solution can incorporate many different features, including a purchase order system, sales forecasting and analysis, and multichannel inventory management. When mobile inventory management involves more than one individual, which is often the case with businesses with two or more locations or warehouse, clear roles and responsibilities can help streamline the stock control process. It helps avoid simple but time-consuming and potentially costly errors like unnecessary purchase orders or conflicting inventory transfers between warehouses.
Monitor order activities
You need to keep track of what is being bought and why. A solution that comes with an integrated purchase order management system makes this easier, as it includes a log of all past purchases, together with the date of the order and quantities bought. Monitoring order activities helps prevent both overstock and understock and can be used to better manage multiple vendors or suppliers.
Set clear usage rules
If two or more employees have access to your mobile inventory management solution, do you expect them to use it outside of their working hours, too? The great portability of a mobile inventory management app makes the control and replenishment of stock on the go possible, so that placing new orders or dealing with understock can be done at the right time, even if that happens to be a Saturday or Sunday, when your business is closed. That said, your inventory staff needs to know what is expected of them, i.e. whether they should daily log into the app or use it only during work hours.
The transition from a traditional small business product inventory software to a mobile inventory app doesn’t have to be confusing, and with DataQlick it isn’t. Launched as a cloud-based inventory control service with order purchasing, sales forecasting and analysis, and vendor management features, DataQlick now offers the same features on mobile, drawing on your QuickBooks records to unify your inventory data. Find out more about DataQlick on mobile.