This Is How to Do Inventory for Your Small Business

In a perfect world, you’ll want your small business to be receiving and sending out products pretty much all the time. This will be a good indication that your sales are strong.

But the one drawback associated with strong sales is that you’re going to need to know how to do inventory so that you can stay on top of it. You’ll put yourself into a tough spot if you don’t have a solid inventory management system in place.

So, what steps are actually involved in doing small business inventory? Well, it can be a little bit more complicated than you might think. It’s why you should make sure you have a good grasp of how to do inventory from the start.

Here is a quick breakdown of how to do inventory for businesses so that you’re able to keep everything humming along with your small business.

Designate a Specific Area for Storing Your Small Business Inventory

From the second that you start up a small business, you should be trying to figure out how to do inventory. It should begin with you specifying where you’re going to keep your inventory inside of your business.

You don’t want to have your inventory scattered around all over the place. Instead, you want to come up with a designated area for it and keep your inventory there.

Ideally, your inventory should be kept in a room that has plenty of shelves that can be used to house your products. It should also be kept in a room that you can lock up tight so that it’s safe and sound when you aren’t around.

Come Up With a Good Way to Keep Your Inventory Organized

Putting your entire inventory into one specific part of your business is a great start. But it’s not going to do you much good if you can’t find anything when you go to look for it.

With this in mind, you should aim to keep your inventory organized as soon as you set up the place where you’re going to put it. You can do this by separating the items in your inventory into different sections. If you are running a brewery, you can use software for Keg Delivery Tracking as well as management of stock.

You can also do it by coming up with a labelling system for the products in your inventory. You should get into the habit of recording everything from the names of your products to the stock-keeping units (SKUs) for them.

The more organized that you’re able to make your inventory, the better off you’re going to be over the long run.

Create a System for Receiving New Inventory and Getting It Checked In

When you’re first setting up a spot for your inventory and organizing everything in it, it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep track of it all. But once you start welcoming new inventory into the mix, it’s going to become harder and harder to maintain control.

For this reason, you should create a system that will help you receive new inventory and get it all checked in. You might want to designate a certain day or a certain time to receiving new inventory and checking it into your system.

Whatever the case, you shouldn’t just haphazardly receive inventory and check it in any old way. You’ll be asking for trouble if you take this approach to things.

Take Advantage of the Inventory Software and Tools Available to You

One of the ways in which you can make receiving new inventory easier on yourself is by taking advantage of the inventory software and tools available to you. They’ll eliminate a lot of the stress that’s typically associated with doing inventory.

This barcode scanner app is an excellent example of a tool that you can use while checking in new products. You can also utilize it when retrieving products so that you can send them out to customers who have ordered them.

Create a System for Sending Out Products From Your Inventory to Customers

Just like you need to create a system for welcoming new products into your inventory, you also need to come up with a system for removing products from your inventory for the purpose of sending them out to customers. Otherwise, you might go to retrieve a product at some point only to realize that you’re all sold out.

Every time that you or one of your employees grabs a product to ship it out, you should remove it from your inventory software and mark it as a sale. It’ll let you know when it’s time to restock products.

Set Aside Some Time to Do Regular Inventory Counts

No matter how diligent you might be when it comes to keeping tabs on the products that you receive and send out, there are inevitably going to be times when your inventory counts will be off. As a result, you need to make it a point to do regular inventory counts to reconcile them.

You don’t need to do inventory counts every day, every week, or even every month. But you should try to do them at least a few times a year to ensure that your inventory counts are accurate.

Make It Your Mission to Improve Your Approach to Inventory as You Move Forward

At this point, you should have a much better idea as to how to do inventory. But you shouldn’t ever stop learning how to improve your operations as far as inventory is concerned.

You should keep your eyes peeled for new inventory tips and put them to good use when you can. They’ll give you even more control over your inventory and prevent products from going missing.

Knowing How to Do Inventory Is Essential for All Small Businesses

If your inventory counts are always getting screwed up, it’s eventually going to start to take a toll on your business. It’s what makes knowing how to do inventory so important.

You should rethink the approach you’re taking to inventory management right now and make sure you aren’t making any crucial mistakes. Just a few slight tweaks to your small business inventory could make all the difference in the world.

Are you interested in obtaining more tips that will help make your business more efficient? Find them by reading the other great articles on our blog.