How to improve warehouse management

How to improve warehouse management with inventory software

There are many factors to address the question of how to improve warehouse management. For streamlining purchasing, inventory control, orders, and multichannel fulfillment, the answer is Acctivate Inventory Software. The centralized solution works with QuickBooks and empowers warehouse managers to run their warehouses efficiently while adhering to best practices and gaining ROI.

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“We have much more accurate inventory with Acctivate.

We set up seven different warehouses in Acctivate to pull inventory from and to control the inventory. That works out very well for us.

Entering the orders and receiving inventory is quicker. Transferring inventory from warehouse to warehouse before Acctivate was time-consuming because we had different codes for each warehouse. Now we use the same code for multiple warehouses.”

Rich Jersey

Owner

Inventory replenishment & control

Company-wide, real-time inventory visibility is a must-have on the mission of how to improve warehouse management as it keeps all warehouses accurately stocked to satisfy customer demand without tying up capital and space in unused inventory or losing sales due to out-of-stocks.

Acctivate alerts business as to when to replenish items and simplifies the purchasing process from creating purchase orders to receiving inventory into the warehouse.

In addition to inventory receipts, other inventory transactions are handled with ease, including:

• Transfer inventory between warehouses (physical & virtual) and locations within warehouses (i.e., bins, shelves, trucks).
• Perform physical inventory counts regularly or at year-end to ensure accurate quantities are maintained.
• Adjust inventory to match actual inventory levels, such as when removing damaged goods from stock.
• Adjust inventory balances to change the cost of a product.
• Remove inventory from stock for non-sales use, such as donations, samples, etc.
• Create assembly products by taking components from inventory and adding them to the finished product to be stocked, plus track the progress of assembly workorders. Alternatively, kitting is supported to create a product from multiple components on demand.
• Allocate landed costs (freight, duties, insurance, etc.) to calculate the true cost of goods sold.
• Track the usage and/or trace the source of lot numbered and serialized products.

Many of the above transactions are optimized further with Acctivate mobile warehouse management to boost speed and accuracy by barcode scanning with a mobile device.

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“A huge aspect of Acctivate is the order manager. Our whole company is based around order manager since products and orders are the heart of our distribution business.

If we didn’t have order manager to put sales orders in and then to move them around in different workflow status buckets, then we wouldn’t be able to operate. The communication between the office and the warehouse is all done through Acctivate.”

Ryan Jones

VP Operations

Multichannel order management + fulfillment

Today’s warehouses handle storing inventory and fulfilling orders for sales through multiple channels, such as ecommerce webstores, B2B wholesaling, and physical stores. Multichannel order management can increase the need for more warehouse space and accelerated fulfillment.

Acctivate manages all orders from all sources together across multiple warehouses and locations within warehouses. With live inventory levels and purchase + sales history maintained, inventory can be better organized in the existing warehouse space through inventory forecasting and customer trend data. Such data provides insights, such as what products are more popular to store where travel time is reduced.

Acctivate knows how to improve warehouse management, as it keeps orders progressing from sale to delivery with cost/time-saving features including:

• Progressing orders in batch with various one-click actions, i.e., creating a picklist & invoice, and updating workflow status.
• Strategic mapping of routes specific to the warehouse layout to pick orders in batch faster; plus mobile picking functionality.
• Consolidating orders into shipments containing multiple cartons, i.e., for EDI orders to big box retailers.
• Communicating shipping info to/from various carrier workstations, i.e., UPS, FedEx, DHL, and USPS to ship orders.

Acctivate knows how to improve warehouse management

While there are many elements to a successful warehouse, a smart investment in inventory software will alleviate operational challenges by automating and enhancing processes. Acctivate + QuickBooks is a complete business management solution built for small to midsized businesses.

The data managed and used to optimize operations is available to view in reports, dashboard widgets and quick lists. Data driven decisions can be made for the business as a whole and at the different department levels, including the warehouse, where performance can be gauged based on KPIs, such as receiving times/costs, picking and packing efficiency, order fulfillment times, etc.

Sources:

¹ Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey

² How to Calculate Warehouse Space and Storage Capacity