Inventory Management System

1.1  What is Inventory Management System

When the word ‘inventory’ is heard, in terms of business, the first thing that pops in most people’s head is a retail store. This is a widespread misconception that inventory systems are only applicable in retail operations. While, it is true that retail operations are heavily dependent on inventory management, but so are other industries such as healthcare, education and more.

The simplest way to describe an inventory management system would be to say that it is a place to keep everything in place. Inventory management is a very slow process that could hinder the pace of your work. However, software with the right features can assist you here and make your life easier.

 Inventory management software is a system that has labels for each and everything related to your business. You get to keep track of all your data, all your resources and all your files through the software. Whether you are carrying a brick and mortar store, an ecommerce site, a supermarket or a logistics company, an inventory management system is necessary for you. There are many kinds of inventory management systems available, catering to the needs of different businesses.  

Inventory management system optimizes the entire process starting from a client placing an order with your vendor to the delivery of the order, mapping the complete journey of a product from the start to the end. Not only does the software give you an in depth view of your products, it also gives you an insight about your customers.

1.2  Importance of Inventory Management Systems

Without an inventory management system, there wouldn’t be a way to keep track on the goods, the products and the processes that take place in a company. Thanks to an inventory system, a company can hold all its records in one place. So, all the assets, the location of every vendor and supplier specifications of every item can be controlled by the company from a central repository.

Often, inventory contains movable items and thus, inventory management systems are vital to keep track on current stock levels and analyzing what assets are in demand and move more quickly, which vendors are in demand, and what are the slow moving assets. This allows the organization to understand what they need to reorder, which vendors should be given greater importance, etc.

A comprehensive inventory system offers a lot of benefits such as better business forecast abilities, reduction in labour costs and dead stock, and better customer, vendor, and business associates’ relationship.

When there is data available for your entire months of how well a business is operating, it is easy for analysts to make business forecasts and thus, strategies can be devised looking at the predictions. Thanks to the inventory system software, extra hands are no longer need to be employed by companies to help in keeping track of all the operations that are carried out in the company. Furthermore, the inventory system gives an accurate number of how much stock is left and what stock needs to be replenished. As inventory systems also give acute information of how vendors are doing, how the customers are fairing and how much profit the business associates are earning, better relationships can be established by an organization with its partners.

1.3  Foodnerd’s Inventory Management System

Foodnerd’s real-time inventory system helps in keeping track of suppliers, customers, products and product information in an effective and efficient manner. Following are the features found on the platform:

1.       Reports: Reports in any organization give a clear idea of how much profit or loss the establishment is going through. Foodnerd’s inventory management system has done the same for the company. There are six kinds of reports generated to keep in check Foodnerd’s progress:

·         Item Report: You get an accurate estimate about the number of units sold overall in whatever date you apply a filter to.

·         Menu Sales Report: All the restaurants enlisted on the portal generate a separate report. This report shows the sales in each category of menu.

·         Order Sales report : Complete descriptions of all the orders created including the time of order, the date and time of completion, the channel that was used to order such as Android, web, etc. , what kind of order it was; delivery or take out.

·         Order rejection report: This report enlists all the orders that had not been taken up by the company. The order number, restaurant name, delivery address and reason for cancelation are available here.

·         Menu report: How many of an item have you sold from a menu is included here. For instance there are 4 kinds of biryani sold at a restaurant and thus they have created a menu for biryani. If biryani is selected by the user, the number of each biryani sold would be displayed.

·         Purchase and Sales Report: An overall profit, loss report is what we get here. The number of purchases and their costs and selling cost are included here. And thus the profit can easily be calculated by the system.

 

2.       Drawers: The drawers feature in Foodnerd’s inventory management system mimics the drawers present in the cashier’s counter at a typical retail store. Here, amount given by customer is entered and the change given back is written as a result.

 

3.       Inventories: Inventories keep account of each and everything in an organization. Foodnerd has two inventories that allow businesses to do just that:

 

·         Menu Item Inventory: This inventory’s purpose is to keep track of how many items are present in a menu. Take a pizza outlet for instance. They add the total number of pizzas they have for the day. Every time a pizza is sold from the menu, it is subtracted from the total. If there is no pizza left, a message saying the product is out of stock will be displayed.

·         Ingredient Item Inventory: This inventory’s purpose is to keep you informed of the quantity of items available that is required to make your product. For instance, a burger place will use it to keep track of how many buns, patties, vegetables they have.

 

4.       Billing Discount:  The management system allows the user to place discounts on restaurants by either creating an offer or giving a voucher offer where a promo code is used. Two kinds of discounts can be applied:

·         Flat Discount: This discount is given by the seller every product to the number specified.

·         Percentage Discount: This means that some selected items of the stock have discounts ranging to the percentage specified.

 

5.       Notifications: Once an order is placed, the client is sent an order acceptance SMS. When the order is complete and the transaction is complete, message of order completion is sent too. Similarly, if the order has been rejected by a restaurant, an SMS and Email is sent to the customer informing him of the rejection and also providing the reason for the action.

6.       POS system: The POS system allows the vendors to easily receive orders, set timer on the order as they will depending on the time it takes to get the order ready and then send it to the ‘in progress’ phase, where the order is present until the customer pays for it and it is delivered.

All the information about an order, including customer’s name, address, contact details, food ordered and from which restaurant is available here.

Once Foodnerd receives an order, the system also forwards it to the restaurant in question but he support team confirms the details over phone with the vendor too.

7.       Order History: Foodnerd’s inventory management system gives the user an option to view all the orders they have received so far. There are filters available through which a user can sort out the range and time as they will.

 

1.4  Conclusion:

Inventory management systems are necessary for any business; be it of a large scale or a small one. Foodnerd’s inventory system is one that is efficient, easy to use and reliable.