Business Central delivers value for SMEs by fulfilling a wide range of operational functions: finance and accounting, sales management and project management to name but a few.
For retailers and manufacturers, one of the most beneficial features is using Business Central for inventory management.
Inventory management involves the tracking of inventory over its life cycle: from initial purchase/acquirement up to the final customer sale. A pain point area for many businesses - who often use multiple platforms or applications to manage the process) - Business Central addresses the challenges of inventory management in the following ways:
Real-Time Visibility
Using Business Central for inventory management allows users to access real-time data, allowing for better informed decisions about restocking and managing inventory levels.
Coupled with automatic tracking of inventory levels, organisations can avoid both stockouts and overstocking.
Improved Forecasting
Using Business Central for inventory management allows users to create forecasts for future inventory needs based on historical data, helping to plan for future demand. This not only prevents overstocking but can help organisations align inventory purchases to better periods in the P&L cycle.
Better Organisation With Business Central Inventory Management
Business Central's inventory management features allow users to organise inventory by location, product, and other criteria.
Organisations can even operate floating inventory bins, where Business Central assigns warehouse space based on the availability of space, rather than having a fixed storage location.
Integration With Other Systems
Using Business Central for inventory management, organisations can integrate their other systems for a more joined-up and accurate data experience.
Warehouse management, point of sale and e-commerce software integrations are all common with Business Central, while barcoding can be achieved indigenously with Power Apps. This helps to streamline inventory management and improve accuracy.
Improved Accuracy And Efficiency In Financial Reporting
Integrating financial data with inventory data can help ensure that financial reports accurately reflect the organisation’s inventory status and movements.
Data can provide insights into inventory turnover, cost of goods sold and other key metrics that can help organisations make better decisions about inventory levels and purchasing.
Integrating financial data also provides managers with a more comprehensive view of the company finances and inventory status, enabling them to make more informed decisions around potential discounting and sales strategies.
Cost Savings
Streamlining operations and improving inventory management can help reduce costs associated with carrying excess inventory or lost sales due to stockouts.
Forecasting with Business Central can also help suggest times of peak sale, ensuring that you have the relevant people power available to manage demand.
Business Central For Inventory Management: Conclusion
Using Business Central for inventory management presents a host of benefits in streamlining and unifying operations. By doing so, inventory management becomes more simple, takes less time and can be managed by fewer people, ultimately resulting in significant cost savings.
To find out more about Microsoft Business Central’s capabilities:
