Inventory management is a real issue for physical stores.
I know this because I was once an intern in one of those big brands of 2023.
I am NOT gonna drop names because that experience definitely taught me one thing or two—especially about business operations AND raw materials.
So, what I did when I started applying for different types of businesses was quite imaginable: start looking for decent inventory software before it fails in front of your eyes.
THANK GOD, most of the places I applied were working with good ones already (as expected😔😔).
In short, I will be showing you around the inventory management systems for you to check them out and see which one is fit to be your inventory solution.
Now, let me take all business managers and even business owners a ride on the cloud-based solutions that care about your inventory items to increase supply chain efficiency.
Top 5 Inventory Management Software in 2023
Here, I will show you the cloud-based inventory management solutions with their key features, some of which I actually used and experienced firsthand.
All to find you an inventory management system that works for you 🙏
1- monday.com – a better way to manage your inventory (AND your business)
monday.com is an all-in-one Work OS (operating system) that works for managing everything you have on your plate, including track of inventory.
You can easily make use of monday.com as your inventory software to organize your stock levels and track your inventory levels. There are many boards you can utilize when creating a new project; choosing the inventory template is all you have to do. After that, monday.com has every little item that would simplify your inventory management process. For example, you can customize it to suit your needs with:
- item name columns (to indicate the name of the product),
- numbers columns (to display the product number, price, and units in stock OR to perform serial number tracking),
- status columns (to check the standout features, such as the color of the product, and general status of the product),
- date columns (to record the last time the product is stocked),
- rating columns (to reveal the priority of restocking),
- dropdown columns (to add a wide range of tags to show a detailed product description in a simple way)
The columns above can be used for anything you can think of. Also, you can add many other columns to customize your own supply chain management board. But enough about boards, let’s get to the more advanced features, such as automations. With the automations that monday.com provides you with, you can set up such a schema that you get stock alerts in real-time when one column is getting closer to the number of your preference.
OR you can create another board where you contact your customers to manage orders and keep track of order history. For instance, this time, you can add a column to record your customers’ emails to check in with them when in need. Additionally, you can view your shipping labels, shipping carriers, and customer demands and use the entire board as an online sales channel.
PLUS, thanks to its mobile app, you get to monitor your entire inventory without any delay.
Besides being a perfect inventory management software, monday.com has more to offer in terms of managing your business—regardless of business size and business type ’cause monday.com has a wide variety of use cases, from marketing to customer relationship management. Aside from using its advanced inventory management techniques, I also use it for several other reasons. Here are a few of the reasons I use this award-winning platform:
- enabling @mentions as swiftly as a messaging app
- all kinds of dashboard, planning, and tracking—such as activity, applicant, and communication
- enabling deadline management, thanks to features like alerts/notifications and time tracking
- bug tracking alongside bug/issue capture
- many useful business collaboration tools
- plenty of customization options, such as custom fields, custom workflows, and custom branding
- from task creation to database creation, offering space for creativity
- allowing advanced user management, document management, and expense management through unlimited boards, including private boards and message boards
- offering a wide range of pricing plans for businesses of all sizes
The project management software that will actually work for your team
Manage simple to complex projects and everything in between with monday.com
monday.com Pricing
- Free plan: €0 (up to 5 seats)
- Basic plan: €8/user per month when billed annually
- Standard plan: €10/user per month when billed annually
- Pro plan: €16/user per month when billed annually
- Enterprise plan: For this plan, please contact sales.
*All the plans above include a 14-day free trial, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.
2- Zoho Inventory – a solid choice for inventory optimization for free
Zoho Inventory is an inventory management tool that is best known for its inventory forecasting and inventory control FOR FREE.
However, this does NOT mean that it lacks advanced features when it comes to item management. Zoho Inventory includes inventory control, warehouse management, and several third-party integrations within its platform to help you keep track of the order lifecycle. Besides, it proves to be quite useful when integrated with Zoho Books, a cloud-based accounting software, for vendors and business owners since you will get a view of both numbers and items as data entries.
With automations, barcode scanning will no longer be a problem for you, thanks to the barcode scanning capabilities of Zoho. Streamlining your cloud inventory management process while monitoring in and out-of-stock items via barcode scanners is just one part of the experience that Zoho offers to its users.
Zoho Inventory Pricing
- Free plan: $0 (limited features)
- Standard plan: $59/month per organization when billed annually
- Professional plan: $99/month per organization when billed annually
- Premium plan: $159/month per organization when billed annually
- Elite plan: $239/month per organization when billed annually
*All the plans above include a 14-day free trial, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.
3- inFlow Inventory – a great choice for managing your current inventory
inFlow Inventory is a cloud-based inventory management software with several standout features that offer a great customer experience.
With inFlow as your advanced inventory management system, you can find solutions for topics such as:
- inventory control,
- purchasing and receiving,
- barcoding,
- reporting,
- manufacturing,
- integrations and API,
- sales and invoicing,
- mobile,
- and B2B portals.
Big names like Forbes and Inc. Magazine use this award-winning software to organize products, barcode, handle pricing and costing, re-order, manufacture, make sales, fulfill orders, create B2B portals, ship orders, get paid, manage customers, purchase stock, receive stock, pay vendors, receive dashboards and detailed reports, and manage data—just like you could.
inFlow Inventory Pricing
- Entrepreneur plan: $79/month when billed annually
- Small Business plan: $219/month when billed annually
- Mid-Size plan: $439/month when billed annually
- Enterprise plan: $1319/month when billed annually
*All the plans above include a 14-day free trial, making it possible to try them out before committing to an annual purchase.
4- ShipHero – an advanced platform for a higher price
ShipHero is a warehouse management software that is loved by many warehouse managers, especially for its seamless integration process with other systems, such as Amazon, Shopify, Returnly, and FedEx, to take customer service to the next level.
ShipHero includes many additional features inside depending on the package you choose, such as:
- multi-warehouse order allocation,
- re-order and replenishment level setting,
- cycle counting,
- licensed user data reports,
- location management,
- lot and expiration date tracking,
- error reduction,
- and logs and reports, including replenishment reports.
Especially excelling at reporting features even on its mobile app, ShipHero makes a perfect candidate for warehouse management. Keeping track of products from production to sale gives warehouse managers an opportunity to easily find and fix the errors that might occur throughout the order lifecycle. Thus, for the sake of inventory optimization and user reviews, try giving this warehouse management tool a chance!
ShipHero Pricing
- Standard VMS for Brands plan: starts at $1,850/month
- VMS for 3PLs plan: starts at $1,995/month
- Enterprise VMS for Brands plan: For this plan, please contact sales.
5- Fishbowl Inventory – an accurate inventory system with proper inventory control features
Fishbowl Inventory is an inventory management software specializing in multichannel inventory syncing and is popular among small and midsize businesses.
With Fishbowl as your inventory management software, you can generate, monitor, and display work orders, bills of materials, stock between locations, barcode scanners, asset tracking, cost of goods, and more calculation-related possessions with ease.
Another famous trait of this inventory app is its native integration with Quickbooks Online. This way, you get to see the business’s accounting system on QuickBooks without any manual work; all you have to do is integrate Fishbowl with an accounting platform.
Thus, new contacts on Fishbowl? Added to QuickBooks ✅
All of your inventory adjustments? Sent to QuickBooks ✅
Let Fishbowl take care of your supply chain operations if you want to experience the benefits of inventory management firsthand.
Fishbowl Inventory Pricing
Fishbowl Inventory is priced according to the number of user licenses; thus, you need to reach out to its sales team to get a custom quote and demo. However, it states that the software starts at only $4,395, giving you permanent ownership of the software.
Conclusion
Nowadays, it is really hard to find cloud-based software that you can trust with your inventory.
However, worry not ’cause this list provides you with great cloud-based solutions to help you manage your inventory in real-time.
Pretty sure that they will all deliver customer satisfaction.
Go ahead and try them out!
Frequently Asked Questions
Which software is best for inventory management?
monday.com is the best inventory management software because it has several features that help you track your inventory, evaluate shipments and suppliers, manage levels, optimize security, add barcodes, record stocks, and more.
Is monday.com the best inventory management software?
Yes, monday.com is the best inventory management software, thanks to the 200+ pre-made templates, useful views and columns that are suitable for inventory management, and customizable assets that ensure an efficient execution process for your operations.
Is Zoho inventory really free?
Yes, Zoho Inventory is free for an organization with one warehouse to manage and two users with limited features.
