Businesses that acquire, produce or manufacture raw materials are required to assess future demand and determine how much to reorder. This procedure, also known as inventory planning, can support a brand’s efforts in demand forecasting while also assisting in the reduction of additional inventory expenses. Effective inventory planning, in general, provides a clear path to lower expenses, a better product mix, happier consumers, and higher revenue.
You can plan what stock you need to have, including the precise products you need and how many of each item you need to replenish, with the help of the right inventory planning software. A good inventory planning software also notifies you when to replenish essential commodities so that stockouts are prevented. This will provide you with a fantastic picture of your inventory performance in addition to real-time inventory data.
Maintaining optimal stock levels is essential in the fast-paced world of quick commerce & e-commerce in order to handle international distribution, round-the-clock order processing, and multichannel sales.
Here are some of the features that a good inventory planning software should have:
Integrations
The software you choose must function flawlessly with the various devices and tools you employ, including point-of-sale, CRM, accounting, warehouse management, and order management systems.
Scalability is yet another crucial aspect to take into account. You should pick software that will expand and adapt as your company changes and expands. Software that can manage several locations, numerous product lines, and shifting demand patterns is what you should be looking for. Consider the database scalability and processing power of the software.
Accurate Demand Forecasting
You need to be able to make precise demand projections if you want to order the right amount of goods at the right time. it’s especially crucial If you’re selling perishable inventory items because ordering too little could result in a stockout while ordering too much could cause them to spoil and be squandered.
Forecasting demand with good inventory planning software can help to find trends or patterns that may be brought on by seasonal variables or shifting consumer preferences. it can analyze previous sales and customer data and provide predictions about how much inventory you’ll need to meet demand, which makes managing inventory for the holidays considerably less stressful.
Forecasting techniques ought to be applicable to both seasonal and flat-trending goods. Hence, if you sell products that are trending differently, make sure the forecasting setting may be changed at the product level you desire.
Purchase Order Automation
The ability to automate time-consuming, repetitive processes is another significant benefit of inventory planning software. One of these is the creation of purchase orders. It is much quicker and more accurate to have this done automatically than incorporating supplier and inventory information into your purchasing process by hand.
Available Inventory KPIs
It’s critical to have a real-time view of your available inventory, but you also need to be aware of how the individual products are doing. Which products are selling well and which might be discarded to free up space on your shelves? Knowing the current stock’s value is also crucial.
A good inventory planning software solution should be able to precisely track variable inventory expenses, such as courier fees or production waste, and provide you KPIs like the profit margin on your products by sales channel and location. After that, you can evaluate the data and come to informed judgements.
Automated Restocking Alerts
Even if you perform routine cycle counts, it’s possible that you won’t be able to stop a stockout of a particular product. It is far preferable if your software warns you when stock levels are getting low before they are fully depleted. You can decide what quantity qualifies as “low stock” and set up the system to alert you when that quantity is reached.
A good inventory planning software estimates preferred stock levels, lead times, and reorder points in addition to producing reorder reports. It even buys new stock as necessary, saving you additional time and lowering the possibility of an expensive stockout.
Efficient Supplier Management
If you have several suppliers, possibly spread across the globe, it can be challenging to keep track of them all unless your system presents reliable information in one location.
This includes information about the goods that are currently on order or in transit, their prices, terms of payment, and their shipping options, together with each supplier’s contact data, transaction history, and helpful notes.
Modern inventory planning solutions allow you access to real-time inventory levels for each SKU unit across the supply chain. It can help you plan your supply efficiently by providing your teams with the best insights for stock levels, best suppliers, and dynamic safety stock and you can also help you decide which supplier is suitable for any SKU item based on pricing, fill rates, and lead times.
Analysis and Inventory Reporting
You need inventory planning software that provides you with various inventory reports and aids in data analysis in addition to automation. Items like the inventory turnover rate, stock age, unit sales and margins, and the typical time to sell for each SKU should be included. It is preferable if you can customize these reports to suit your needs. Also, you must have reports that can be detailed in order to see the performance at the proper level.
Ease of Use
When selecting inventory planning software, user-friendliness is a critical aspect which needs to be taken into consideration before finalising the solution. The solution you select should be simple to use, intuitive, have an easy-to-navigate interface, and provide clear, concise reports. In software, look for features like drag-and-drop, dashboard customization, and real-time data visualisation.
About the Company
Kronoscope by Fountain9 is an AI-powered demand and inventory planning solution that helps retailers in enabling an optimically stocked inventory. The software can precisely forecast demand for each SKU item and determine the quantities that need to be stocked to fulfill demand adequately. It assists retailers in keeping a high level of product availability and forecast future inventory requirements to optimally stock inventory to satisfy customer demand at the proper moment hence avoiding overstocking and out-of-stock losses.
With the aid of this software, businesses can match client expectations and make more substantial revenue. Thanks to Kronoscope instances of both overstocking and understocking can be avoided.
