How will software track your inventory.

Inventory systems use Item receipts for tracking all incoming products and invoices and sales receipts for tracking all outcoming products. These documents have information about vendor or customer and list of items with quantities and prices. You can print these documents and save in your company and send to your partners.

First of all, you create an initial item receipt with all your existed products. You enter in the column Quantity current stocks of your items. The inventory system will show these values in the Item list form in the column On hand. If you have several warehouses you'll create item receipt for each warehouse with defined field Location. When you sell you product you have to create an invoice and save it. After that, the inventory system will subtract shipped amount from received amount and show in the on hand field of the Item list the current on hand amount.

Syatem will recalculate on hand amounts for your products after each new item receipt or invoice. If you want to have accurate information about your inventory you have to create document for each receiving and shipping.

Customer and vendor list in inventory systems

You have deal with many companies in your business. And you can divide them in customers and vendors. Any inventory system has tables for customers and vendors. You'll define their names, addresses, discounts, contact persons and other information in these tables. Customer and vendor lists allow to find any company and edit it. You'll be use the customer and vendor list for tracking your receiving and shipping operations. You'll enter information about your partner only one time. Then you'll find required company in the customer or vendor list and add it to your invoice , sales order or purchase order.

Item list in an inventory system.

Any inventory system has two parts. The first one is a program and the second one is a database. The database is a set of tables. Some tables we'll name lists. These tables will keep information about your products,customers, vendors and other constant parameters. The other tables we will name Actions. These tables must include information on the inflow and outflow of inventory items as well as the quantities and prices of items.

Items or products are base of any inventory system. You'll keep information about your items in the item table. This table usually has fields Item Name,Description,Vendor Price, Sales Price,Department, Bar Code. You'll fill out these fields one time when you receive an item in your warehouse. If you receive this item second time you use your first record. You can only change vendor and sales prices. You'll be able to search any item in the item list.

And you'll be able to edit any record in the item list.

The item table doesn't have information about current on hand amount of items. The inventory system calculates this amount as difference between received and shipped quantity each time when your open the item list form.

What is inventory software?

If you have any business you face with inventory control everyday. Inventory is an asset that must be managed as it has a direct influence on your money. Obviously, you are tracking all your inventory at paper or in MS Excel. Sometime, you think I spend a lot of time calculating real amounts of your items in warehouse but inventory software systems are expensive and complex. But if you want that your business grows you have to improve inventory accounting in your company.
It's not so hard and not so expensive as you thought. And you'll have the next benefits:
Get items on hand when you need them.
Increase customer satisfaction.
Reduce carrying costs.
Improve the ordering process.
Maximize order flow.
Reduce waste.
I'll describe in this blog how inventory systems work.