Doing Manual Inventory Management is Good Enough - Right?

by

Doing Manual Inventory Management is Good Enough - Right?

Some things are better done by hand—hand-scooped milk shakes, handmade artwork, even nana’s hand-sewn over sized sweaters.

But when you’re doing inventory management in a manual manner, e.g., writing things down on a piece of paper, using Excel spreadsheets, or just “remembering it,” you’re not really giving yourself a hand.

But what else is there that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg? Lots, but we get it, every company has to manage its inventory differently, depending on its size, number of locations, the nature of its inventory and operations, budgetary constraints, and whatever else you have to take on.

But change is hard, so what is it that keeps us running “business as usual?”

It’s What We’ve Always Done

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? When a startup is just getting off the ground, we’re trying to make ends meet. We’re not worried about inventory best practices or tools. It’s whatever gets the job done.

But when that business grows, it carries along those old ways of doing business. As long as they still work, why bother replacing them? But what if you’re leaving cash on the shelf because you don’t have a way to monitor inventory levels?

It’s Cheap

The Microsoft Office suite is a ubiquitous product across PCs, Macs, and other devices. Odds are if you have a computer, you have access to Excel. It’s a fairly intuitive program, and you can use it to create spreadsheets that meet a number of needs.

Don’t forget that pens and paper are also dirt cheap, so the upfront cost of using these to manage your inventory is very small.

Know what else is small? The little mistakes caused by human error that can add up big time come end of the financial year.

It’s Good Enough

Sometimes good enough is just fine. Really. You don’t always have to be on the cutting edge or try all sorts of new products if you’ve already found a certain tool or tactic that does the job in a suitable manner. Looking for something better requires time and money, and it might be safer and less of a hassle to settle for what you’ve got.

I remembered the last time I settled for “good enough,” and now I’m a disappointment to my parents and my sisters. Just kidding, I don’t have any sisters.

At the end of the day you have to ask yourself, how much of “good enough” are you okay with?

We Prefer to Keep It Flexible and Informal

Using an informal inventory management system, such as storing facts and figures in one’s own mind, is more flexible than tying that information down to a dedicated solution. Some business people prefer to keep it that way. This isn’t a judgment about the viability of such an approach, but just how much do you plan to keep “up there?”

Thinking long term, what if someone else needs access to that information? What about record keeping? What if you get tossed off a boat, lose your memory, and have to search out your old life while evading would-be assassins? That makes you Jason Bourne, and he doesn’t care about inventory because the only thing he does with his hands is kill bad guys.

The Other Side of the Story

Don’t feel like you need to change, but know that there are straightforward, simple solutions for you and your business’s inventory needs, including free cloud solutions. If you’d like to get the other side of the story and find out why you might be better off by ditching manual inventory management processes, check out this white paper, and come see what Boxstorm is all about.