Accurate Inventory Count Secrets for Retailers

As a retailer, one of the biggest challenges to running your business profitably is to maintain an accurate inventory. One of the biggest factor which influences the accuracy of your inventory is accurate inventory counts. In this article we explore the secrets to accurate inventory counts.

The first secret to making inventory counts accurate is to use a high-quality Point of Sale software solution. If your inventory management software doesn't work properly and it can't keep track of your inventory in between inventory counts, your staff will get frustrated. There is nothing more frustrating than having "the computer" telling you that you should have 10 quantity of an item, whereas physically you only have 8 and then later on finding that it was "the computer" that made the mistake.

If "the computer" can't keep track of inventory properly, your staff will not be motivated to count inventory accurately either. A high-quality point of sale system is a must in this regard. If your point of sale software can't keep track of your inventory properly through everyday business processes such as sales, returns, layaways, multi-location transfer, special orders etc, then find one that does. Your staff should have the confidence that "the computer" is hardly ever wrong.

Secondly, proper training during inventory count is important. Spot checking people's work is imperative. If you have a whole team doing inventory count, but one person is constantly making mistakes, it will frustrate the other team members who are trying hard to match things up. Don't let one bad apple spoil the whole process for you. Inventory count is a tedious enough process for your staff already. Don't make it worse by allowing lazy employees to ruin the accuracy of your entire inventory. Assign specific sections to people and confront those who aren't counting accurately immediately to find out why they are finding it challenging. There may be a reason that isn't their fault.

Thirdly, invest in technology. A bar coding system can significantly improve the accuracy of your inventory and inventory counts. By labeling every piece of inventory with a simple barcode label which can be printed from a high-quality point of sale software attached to a barcode printer, you can keep track of your inventory easily.

At the checkout counter, your staff can then use barcode scanners to scan inventory upon checkout. This will ensure that the proper item was sold to the customer, in contrast to having your clerks trying to remember the "code" for the item being sold. Don't rely on the memory of your clerks. They are human and they will make mistakes. A barcode system virtually eliminates that.

During inventory count, you can also implement portable inventory barcode scanners to track your inventory. Instead of once again having to remember "codes", or trying to identify exactly what the employee is counting, you employees can simply scan the barcode of the item being counted into the portable scanner and enter the quantity that they see.

These simple but effective tricks are a great way to improve your inventory count accuracy.

How Portable Barcode Scanners Can Make Your Inventory Count Fast and Accurate

Portable barcode scanners can drastically improve the speed and accuracy of your inventory count processes. Accurate inventory control is one of the most important elements of a successful business. Accurate inventory tracking can help to increase sales, improve inventory turnover speeds, reduce theft, identify low-selling items and improve your profit margins.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to improve the accuracy of your inventory is to implement a barcoding system where each inventory item is tagged with a barcode label the minute it arrives at your store or warehouse. Once each item is tagged with a barcode and scanned into your point of sale or inventory management software, more accurate inventory records can be kept.

If the item is sold, it will be scanned during the checkout process and removed from inventory. Similarly if the item is transferred to another location, the barcode of the item can be scanned and tracked more accurately.

However, where a properly setup barcoding system really shines is during inventory count. Traditionally inventory counts were a tedious and often despised part of any business that manages inventory. Employees hate inventory count because it takes a long period of time, it's boring and very often inaccurate.

By using portable barcode scanners, the process of inventory count can be greatly improved and made much more accurate. Employees simply walk around the store or warehouse with a portable hand-held inventory scanner and they scan the barcodes on each item. They no longer need to try to identify the exact SKU or item number or model number of the inventory item they are looking at. All they need to do is scan the barcode and the scanner automatically identifies the item they are scanning. Then the employees simply need to either enter in a quantity number of items of the same type or scan the barcode of each of the items.

Once the inventory is counted with one of these portable inventory scanners, it can be uploaded into your point of sale software and the data can be analyzed. The speed of inventory count can be greatly increased with such a system and so it is also easier to improve the accuracy by going back to items that were counted to verify any discrepancies.

With such an efficient system, inventory counting can be done on a rolling basis throughout the month as opposed to just once a month or once every quarter.

Barcoding systems have come a long way and the integration between barcode printers, barcode scanners and inventory management / point of sale software has been massively improved over the last five years.