A stock control system is one of the most important parts of any business whether big or small. It helps a lot of businesses reach their goals and objectives successfully. Unless you’re a sole trader, you need to allocate stock to the transaction when you buy or sell goods. In some situations, you will also need to adjust for returned or damaged items. All of these tasks are hard to do without a good system for keeping track of stock.
HashMicro as Singapore’s ERP solution provider, provides an easy-to-use, fully-featured Inventory Management System. Therefore, each product or inventory item is recorded in the system, making it simpler to track how much stock is available. In this post, we’ll discuss the stock control system and the most often-used techniques.
Table of Content:
Table of Content
What is Stock Control?
Stock control, often known as inventory control, is the process of ensuring that a company has sufficient supplies. With the proper internal and production controls, the approach ensures that the company can meet client demand. In addition, inventory control depends on data from purchases, reorders, shipping, warehousing, storage, receiving, customer satisfaction, loss prevention, and turnover.
For example, Walmart estimated that it missed $3 billion in sales in 2014 because it didn’t have good enough ways to keep track of its stock. The stock control system maximizes profit from the minimum inventory investment without affecting customer satisfaction. Additionally, if done correctly, it enables businesses to evaluate their existing situation regarding assets, account balances, and financial reports.
Inventory management is a more general term for the whole process of buying goods or services, storing them, and selling them for a profit. Inventory control and management may seem the same, but they are not. In comparison, inventory control manages what is already within a warehouse. Whereas inventory management covers everything from what’s in the warehouse to how a business gets it there and where it goes.
Stock Control System Methods
Stock control methods ensure the right amount of inventory is available to fulfill consumer demand. The following is a list of the most often-used techniques for stock control:
First in, first out
This method calculates the cost of goods sold using the oldest products bought or produced. This approach is popular with perishable stock businesses. Its purpose is to keep goods from deteriorating before it is used. Stock is sorted by arrival date and processed before later arrivals. FIFO is mostly used by retailers who offer many different products over long periods.
Batch control with stock control system
Batch control divides stock and production into batches. This minimizes complexity in the manufacturing process and helps in achieving short-term goals. Additionally, batch control can help keep costs low by only requiring companies to buy the raw materials and parts needed for each batch.
Economic order quantity (EOQ)
EOQ is a complex mathematical formula that optimizes stock for each industry and business. EOQ calculations can be time-consuming, so you may want to consult a specialist or use stock management software with built-in EOQ calculators. It can be integrated with other forms of stock management.
Fixed-time/fixed-level reordering
This entails ordering new supplies at specific periods, specific levels, or both. For instance, a company might have a recurring order for 500 units every third Sunday of the month. For Businesses with established contracts, stable demand, and intermittent irregular orders unless they have a long-term delivery date, this stock control is useful.
Just in time (JIT)
This stock control system originated in Japan. To keep costs low and liquidity high, the company orders inventory only when needed. However, there is a cost associated with the higher cash flow. The company must be very well organized to ensure orders are placed at the right time, and suppliers must be reliable to meet needs. There is also the possibility of running out of stock if a large order is placed.
Manage Stock Control System With Inventory Software
The Inventory Management System integrates related activities into a central software package to provide you with complete control over stock and supply. It can inform you of important actions as your company operates, such as ordering new products whenever your stock reaches a specific level. This can help you avoid overstocking by letting you make decisions based on data.
A computerized stock control system is a good option for businesses dealing with many types of stock. Other useful features include:
Barcode management in stock control system
This refers to the use of barcode scanning technology to manage inventory and track stock movement across multiple locations. Additionally, this allows businesses to quickly and accurately monitor their inventory levels, reduce the risk of stockouts, and avoid overstocking. By using barcode scanners, businesses can easily track the movement of items in and out of their inventory, as well as identify which products are selling quickly and which are not.
Inventory forecasting
It is the process of predicting the amount of inventory a business will need to provide during a specified future period of time. This involves analyzing historical sales data, current inventory levels, and market trends to estimate the demand for a particular product.
Stock aging analysis
involves analyzing the age of a business’s inventory to evaluate and decide on future stock levels of slow and fast-moving items. Additionally, this involves tracking the length of time that items have been in inventory and using that information to determine which items are selling quickly and which ones are not. By identifying slow-moving items, businesses can make informed decisions about how much stock to order and when to order it, which can help to reduce waste and improve overall inventory management.
Stock request management
Refers to the process of managing stock requests from all outlets or warehouses. In addition, this involves automating the approval workflow for stock requests, allowing businesses to quickly and efficiently respond to requests for additional inventory. Therefore, by automating this process, businesses can reduce the amount of time and resources required to manage stock requests.
Also Read: 7 Best Inventory Control Tips to Improve Efficiency
Conclusion
A stock control system is essential for those businesses that maintain large stock and therefore have high turnover. The more products a business holds, the more time-consuming manual recording becomes. It is with this in mind that an automated stock control system becomes such a valuable investment for your business. Automated stock control is an efficient way to ensure that your business never runs out of stock.
HashMicro’s Complete Inventory Management Software can streamline stock management, monitor stock transfers, and estimate all inventory needs. Get your free demo now! and join 1750+ companies in having a better stock control system.
