CPA Practice Advisor - 14

REVIEW: INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

By Mary Girsch-Bock

More Than Tracking Products
out of stock, your entire production
line could shut down immediately.
Larger corporations also have a need to
track office inventory such as employee
computers or laptops.
The inventory management
reviews included in this issue of CPA
Practice Advisor range in scope and
functionality, with some ideal for
QuickBooks users, while others are
suitable for businesses of any size that
need to manage their inventory. The
products included in this issue are:
■ Acctivate
■ AdvancePro
■ Asset Panda
■ EZOfficeInventory
■ Fishbowl
■ InFlow
■ WASP Inventory
■ Zoho Inventory
When reviewing these applications, we looked at a variety of features
including deployment options available, mobile accessibility, barcode
functionality, labeling features, kitting
capability, asset tracking, and multiple
pricing levels. We have also included a
chart that highlights the features and
functions found in each of the above
applications.
As an added bonus, many of these
applications offer a free trial, allowing
you to get a feel for the application and

determine if it would be a fit for your
business or your client.
If you or your client is in the business of selling products, be sure that
you're managing one of your most
important assets properly by investing in inventory management software
today. ■

14

MAY 2020 ■

www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

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ACCTIVATE
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EZOFFICEINVENTORY
FISHBOWL
INFLOW
WASP INVENTORY
ZOHO INVENTORY

NG

Mary Girsch-Bock is a freelance writer specializing in
business and technology
issues and is the author of
her first book, several HR
handbooks, training manuals, and other in-house
publications. She can be
reached at mary.girschbock@cpapracticeadvisor.com

ppor

of a popular product than one that only
sells occasionally. Inventory management software can provide you with
a handy list of your top sellers, along
with your not-so-top sellers, so you can
order accordingly.
Scan items into inventory using
a bar code scanner. If you've been
in the retail business for a while,
you'll remember having to count
your inventory manually, even when
it was delivered. Now, with bar code
scanning offered by many products,
you can simply scan the code on the
box, updating your inventory totals
automatically.
Manages equipment for service
businesses. If you run a service business, you know how hard it can be to
keep track of where your assets are
at all times. Inventory management
software keeps track of all of your
high-priced items, so you'll always
know exactly where they are.
It isn't only retailers that need
good inventory management software.
Manufacturers also need to track
parts, on an even more detailed level.
After all, if just one of those parts is

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While most people view inventory
management as the act of tracking
products in and out of your warehouse,
inventory management also does the
following:
Tracks sales across multiple
warehouses and multiple supply
chains. It's difficult enough to track
inventory levels in a single warehouse;
try tracking inventory levels that are
in multiple locations, or come from
multiple suppliers. It's impossible, and
even if you did manage to do a fairly
decent job tracking your inventory
levels, imagine the time it would take
in order to do so.
Notifies you when stock runs low.
Every retailer knows the nightmare
of running low on stock, particularly
stock that is in high demand. In this
day of instant gratification, it's rare
that someone is content to wait for
a back-ordered item to come back
into stock. Instead, they'll scour the
Internet for someone who does have
that item in stock - and buy it from
them instead.
Manages product levels intelligently. It makes sense to stock more

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inventory management software comes in.

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