Do You Need a Custom Inventory Control System?

Do You Need a Custom Inventory Control System?

Last Updated January 21st, 2022 · Custom Software

Inventory is a critical part of any product-based business: If you have too much inventory, it increases costs and hurts your business’ return on invested capital. If you have too little inventory, it hurts your business’ revenue and customer relationships. The solution to handling these issues is an inventory control system.

Inventory control systems are key to optimizing inventory levels and better understanding your business. While there are many solutions out there, a one-size-fits-all approach is rarely ideal, especially for large or complex businesses. Fortunately, a custom inventory control system may be more accessible than you think.

Let’s take a look at some common challenges associated with inventory control, when standard software doesn’t cut it, and when a custom solution might make sense.

Custom inventory control systems can help you better manage your inventory and extract insightful business insights.


Inventory Control 101

Inventory control, or tracking, has evolved from Excel spreadsheets and manual stock takes to sophisticated software solutions—although a shocking number of businesses still use spreadsheets! These tools address massive challenges that businesses have faced over the years, including preventable returns, out-of-stock items, and overstocks.

A modern inventory control system helps in many ways:

Smaller companies may use built-in e-commerce inventory management or a growing number of purpose-built cloud-based solutions. On the other hand, larger companies may use enterprise resource management (ERP) solutions with inventory management capabilities to integrate with existing ERP systems (e.g., finance, logistics, etc.).


Challenges with an Inventory Control System

Inventory control may be simple for small shops selling a handful of products, but it can quickly spiral out of control. For example, a t-shirt manufacturer selling a few designs may not have any issues, but adding t-shirt sizes, colors and other variants can add a lot of complexity. There’s a clear point at which many businesses must eventually migrate to a dedicated solution.

Some of the most common tipping points include:


Why Standard Software Doesn’t Cut It

There is no shortage of inventory control software available on the market. In fact, most accounting software and e-commerce platforms include inventory tracking features. The problem is that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t scale very well while enterprise solutions may be overengineered for businesses looking for an elegant solution.

Inventory Control System

Some of the most common shortcomings include:


Custom Inventory Tracking Solutions

Custom inventory tracking solutions are catered to your specific business requirements. Rather than trying to get your business to work with a piece of software, you can build a piece of software to help your business become better at managing inventory. You can access exactly the features that you require and avoid paying recurring licensing fees.

These solutions provide several benefits:

Related Article
How a Production Tracker Can Keep Staff and Customers Informed

A quality production tracker is a great way for a manufacturing business to keep customers informed. It can also benefit management and staff.


How to Develop a Custom Solution

There are many different software development firms out there, but few specialize in inventory tracking and have the requisite experience. While a generic development firm could build inventory tracking software, the process will require extensive input and there’s likely to be a number of edge cases that both parties haven’t fully thought out.

Link Software was founded in 2003 to help businesses turn complicated processes into uniquely designed systems tailored to your business needs. With experience working with small to large organizations, we’re able to anticipate many of your requirements (and edge cases) to deliver an incredibly useful tool that meets and exceeds your expectations.

In addition, we can help you expand beyond inventory control to order tracking and other ERP functionality. You can benefit from purpose-built tooling and extensive reporting while delivering an exceptional customer experience with custom client portals.


The Bottom Line

Inventory tracking is a process that begins easy enough but quickly spirals out of control. While there are many inventory tracking solutions on the market, a one-size-fits-all approach is rarely ideal for large or complex businesses. Custom inventory tracking solutions can be a much better fit and help your business unlock tremendous value.

If your inventory tracking is out of control, contact us to learn more about how we can leverage our years of experience to improve your business.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.