Take Control of Stock Control

Editor’s note: This page was updated in June 2024 to provide the latest news, knowledge, and updates – including information about the continuing development of MYOB’s Enterprise business management systems.

It is incredibly frustrating seeing slow moving stock sitting in your warehouse. Stock is money and any capital tied up on your warehouse floor could be better spent elsewhere. On the other hand, a poorly stocked warehouse will lead to missed sales as you cannot offer your customers what they need when they need it. They will begin turning to your competitors to have orders filled on time.

Organisations tend to settle onto either side of the scale – they either have perpetually low stock levels or hold too much stock for the sales team to shift. Managers continue to sign off on the same stock order every month believing it is the safest way to ensure there is always enough stock. A finance team may enjoy seeing a low total value of inventory on their report, believing this is the best way to reduce unnecessary spending and improve profit.

Control stock to strike the right balance

Obviously, the ideal for any organisation is to strike the right stock control balance. Not too much stock that you are unnecessarily tying capital up in the warehouse, and enough available inventory at the right time to avoid missing sales. You need absolute control and real-time information to hit the right balance with your warehouse.

Stock control goals and outcomes:

• Reduce levels of dead stock sitting in your warehouse
• Identify slow moving products so they can be promoted, sold or returned
• Offer the right quantities of stock that will sell in a timely manner
• Improve customer satisfaction
• Improve forecasting accuracy
• Increase cash flow

How to improve stock control?

Stock control relies on forecasting and visibility. Visibility is a current snapshot of your stock profile. How much do you have on hand to meet the current demand? You need to know what you have for it to be useful in building your upcoming inventory strategy. Demand planning and stock forecasting requires detailed analysis of your historical data. How can you know what to buy if you do not know what has sold?  How can you know when to buy if you do not have data about supply chain reliability and prior experience with delivery delays.

How to get control of stock visibility

If you are facing concerns with stock visibility there are some steps you can take:

• Increase your stocktake frequency – this can build confidence in your stock numbers, however, requires significant time investment,
• Carry out partial stocktakes – checking one area of the warehouse more often is considerably faster but does not provide an overall picture,
• Barcode scanning – tried and true method of ensuring that what you are scanning is the product that was dispatched and the product that was receipted in,
• Consolidate inventory systems – Having a single source of truth for your inventory data is imperative; see everything all at once in one place at one time,
• Invest in the cloud – real-time visibility is an important step in having a true account of your stock holdings. Avoid wasting time chasing spreadsheets and manual lists from the warehouse.

How to get control of forecasting and demand planning

These are some steps to get control of forecasting and demand planning

• Have a strategy for growth and factor this in to purchasing plans,
• Look ahead to seasonal and market requirements that indicate increased or decreased buying volumes,
• Analyse competitors’ offerings and points of difference to take advantage of gaps,
• Use clever demand planning software to automate the forecasting calculations.
• Categorise your stock into “must-have’s”, slow movers, fast movers, and “back-order” items and set appropriate stocking levels per category

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Clever software to get control of your stock

Leveraging clever inventory management systems and integrations is a key step in truly unlocking your efficiency. These systems can control stock and provide real-time visibility into your holdings, as well as automatically perform forecasting calculations based on historical data.

MYOB Acumatica (formerly MYOB Advanced)

MYOB Acumatica (formerly MYOB Advanced) is a powerful cloud-based business management system that captures financial and non-financial data across your entire organisation. Its inventory management module forms the base for your single source of inventory truth. It can display stock and sales reports from each location, manage and track stock across multiple bins, warehouses, and locations, and be accessed anywhere and at any time – even for the sales team on the road.

The MYOB Acumatica platform is a complete business management solution. It is built from a suite of integrated modules to meet your requirements. It can manage:

• Finances
• Accounting and Tax
• Customers
• Employees and Payroll
• Supply Chain, and
• Projects

Together these integrated modules can automate processes and workflows and keep your team up to date with the right data at the right time, no matter where they access the system.

MYOB Exo Business

MYOB Exo Business is an established, robust, ERP system with powerful inventory management functionality. The software has been deployed in over 3000 mid-tier organisations across Australia and New Zealand, and they have benefitted from the typically lower cost to implement compared to other mid-market ERP packages.

Inventory-based companies naturally gravitate towards MYOB Exo due to its robust stock control and customisability, as well as the deep integration between the Inventory and Finance modules.

Netstock

With the proper inventory in the right place at the right time, growing your business has never been easier with Netstock. This affordable cloud solution helps companies produce new orders in minutes, minimise stock-outs, and reduce excess inventory.

Netstock is an automated demand-planning solution that integrates directly with both MYOB Acumatica and MYOB Exo Business. It predicts future sales and monitors current holdings to automatically generate purchase orders for refills – even factoring in delivery lead times so you never run out of stock. Netstock is a pivotal solution when it comes to striking the right balance of stock in your warehouse.

Key features of Netstock are:

• Dashboards to manage your stock by exceptions
• Item classifications to focus your resources and act quickly
• Forecasts to easily visualise future stock levels
• Place orders at the click of a button
• Ability to procure centrally and distribute to other locations

eveXso

eveXso is a Warehouse Management Solution (WMS) that monitors your inventory for more efficient distribution. eveXso combines user-centric design, familiar devices, and cloud technologies to deliver a new style of WMS embraced by both users and management. Users love the speed and simplicity of the interface; Management like real-time issue reporting and information to drive efficiency.

eveXso streamlines your picking and packing workflows, assisting your team to make sure that the right products are sent to the right customers and that they move through your warehouse efficiently. It works off personal devices through an accessible application, automating label printing and integrating with dedicated shipping solutions for maximum warehouse efficiency.

Find out more about taking out the guesswork of purchasing and take control of stock control by talking to our inventory experts. Contact us at sales@kilimanjaro-consulting.com or by calling 1300 857 464 (AU) or 0800 436 774 (NZ).