Inventory Management with SAP Business One

Inventory Management with SAP Inventory Management System

Inventory is a central aspect of business operations, and for growing businesses, it can be one of the most difficult categories to maintain efficiency and transparency. For small to midsize businesses selling products, maintaining an organized inventory management plan is integral to drive revenue and success. The days of tracking inventory levels on spreadsheets must eventually come to an end as the customer base and demand begin to increase. Inventory Management technologies are designed to take the manual stress and tracking out of the process.

There are many facets that make up inventory management. By definition according to Investopedia, it is the process of ordering, storing, using and selling a company’s inventory. This includes the management of raw materials, components, and finished products, as well as warehousing and processing of these items (1).

When someone is searching for inventory management technologies, there are incredible amounts and various options on the market. For smaller startups, a plain inventory management solution may be all that is needed for support at the moment, but when business begins to pick up and it is becoming difficult to effectively manage the inventory process, a software with greater scope and scalability is necessary to sustain that growth. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Solutions, such as SAP Business One, are fully-comprehensive business management software that support all aspects of inventory management.

Here are three ways that SAP Business One powers and supports inventory management efforts:

Purchasing Control: With SAP Business One, there is incredible functionality spanning across the entire purchasing process all the way into inventory visibility and control. During the procurement process, Business One allows users to create purchase requests, purchase orders, and goods receipts which are then all linked for audit purposes. Users can also process accounts payable invoices, cancellations, and credit memos with a PO reference, making the entire process seamless and stress free.  Business One allows users to plan their material needs and schedule the purchases accordingly with little to no hassle.

Inventory Planning: Planning to keep warehouses operating with top-notch organization and efficiency can be achieved with the features of SAP Business One. Details such as various costing models and multiple units of measure and pricing are all available to be managed within the system for each individual item, customer, or blanket agreement. Business One’s item master data also helps maintain these costing and pricing models because the item can be found quickly and edited as needed. Bin location management is another area that can cause some warehouse troubles. In Business One, stock can be managed in multiple warehouses by dividing each warehouse into multiple subzones. From there, specific allocation rules can be set to optimize stock movement and reduce the picking times.

Inventory Control and Visibility: Inventory data in SAP Business One is organized in a user-friendly interface allowing for strong data management and reference material. When the inventory arrives at the respected warehouse, the goods receipts are reflected in the inventory levels within the warehouse. Warehouse stock levels are updated in real time, so users are never in the dark about all of the various stock statuses for every product spanning multiple warehouses. Another way Business One allows users greater levels of inventory control and visibility is the high level of reporting functionality. Users can pull up inventory reports that are always updated with real-time data with different formatting options to allow for customized and data-driven inventory reports to help influence future purchasing decisions.

In conclusion, SAP Business One is an incredible ERP option for small to midsize growing businesses looking to streamline and add efficiency to their inventory management processes.

For more information on how SAP Business One and Softengine can help your company increase productivity with accurate, real-time information, visit www.softengine.com and contact us at info@softengine.com!

Resources:

1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/inventory-management.asp
2. www.softengine.com