Wasp Barcode Inventory Management White Paper - Manual (Page 4)

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Taking Stock of Your Inventory
While applications like spreadsheets are well-designed for their specific purposes and provide some
initial visibility, they are inadequate to monitor the constant ebb and flow of office supplies, parts and
materials or other inventory items.
This was the case for Process Control Outlet, a small industrial
electronics reseller. Initially, the company used its accounting
application to try and track the hundreds of industrial electronics items
it sells. However, the software’s limited inventory-management
capabilities made it difficult for sales representatives to see what was
in stock, leading to delays in fulfilling customer orders. Sales agents
often resorted to manually verifying product availability in the warehouse, wasting valuable sales time
and frustrating customers who were waiting for an answer.
For its part, Amarillo National Bank, a regional bank in west Texas, used two complex Excel
spreadsheets to manage its inventory of pens, deposit slips, paper and other necessary items. One
spreadsheet had 60 tabs; the second had about 40 tabs. It regularly took at least a full day each
month to update the spreadsheet. Plus, errors were easily introduced, and took considerable time to
reconcile. In the end, the difficulty and inefficiency of monthly updates to the file, combined with
errors, resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in write offs each year.
Meanwhile, the Health Sciences Learning Center, a department of Pensacola State College, stockpiled
supplies in closets scattered around the campus, resulting in a lot of expensive, unnecessary
duplication. A spreadsheet accounting for the inventory items initially helped generate an accurate
list of all the supplies stored throughout the campus, but
was too unwieldy and time-consuming for ongoing
transactions. Plus, they wanted to keep accurate cost of
the ever-changing inventory, and the spreadsheet was not
suited to this need.
Built to Order
So what should inventory software do?
A quality inventory management system enables you to know, track and locate every item that enters
your company's doors, whether you'll use it internally, lend it to a customer, use it to repair
equipment or sell it outright. With its location capabilities, an inventory management solution gives
detailed information on an item's locale. For example, a piece of inventory can be found in a site –
such as a warehouse or supply room – and at a specific location within that site, like aisle 3,
section A, shelf 1. Depending on your company's preference, the software can use additional means –
including serial numbers, lot numbers, date codes or pallets – to further distinguish each item.
It regularly took at least a full day each
month for Amarillo National Bank to
updated their inventory spreadsheets.