There’s no question that small online businesses need some form of inventory system. You can have the most profitable product in the world, but if you don’t actually have it on hand when people want it, they’re going to go elsewhere. The trick is finding a tracking method that eliminates as much friction as possible. After all, nobody likes entering endless amounts of inventory data into a spreadsheet every day in exchange for more sales and fewer headaches. Keep reading to find out more about warehouse management software for small business free, or about simple inventory software free!
Warehouse management software is a very broad concept. It can mean a lot of different things depending on the size and needs of your business. Maybe you’re looking to streamline your operations or simplify how you take inventory. Whatever your goals are, it’s important to remember that you don’t have to break the bank to get started. In fact, you might find that some of the best warehouse management solutions for small business are actually free!
Inflow
Inflow warehouse management software is an industry-grade software application used by thousands of small, midsized, and large businesses. You can streamline the complete operations of your warehouse business by using a comprehensive warehouse management system such as Inflow.It is an easy-to-set-up warehouse management system that takes you onboard quickly. You can efficiently manage your warehouse, optimize your picking routes, maintain accurate inventory levels, and operate multi-location warehouses using inflow warehouse management software. It has features that let you manage your storage space in an efficient way. It provides you ultimate metrics and insights to improve your warehouse’s functioning.
Source-Inflow
Key Features:
- Transfer, deliver, pick, and receive stocks from your phone
- Improve your inventory accuracy in the warehouse with a mobile app
- Supports multi-location warehouses
- Review pick lists, and transfer stock instantly
- Scan barcodes to check stock levels using phone, USB, or Bluetooth
- Notifies you when to replenish inventory
- Set specific reorder points for each location
- Multiple methods to reorder stock such as PO, stock transfer, or work order
- Full control on a user-by-user basis.
- Make real-time changes in stock levels
If you are into small business and have lower software costs, then you can make use of free warehouse management software. Along with that, the open source warehouse management system allows more customization. So without purchasing the expensive licenses, you can explore the features of high quality free and open source warehouse management software.
openboxes (open source, free)
openboxes is the open source warehouse management system that will help you in improving your workflows due to its intuitive user interface. This supply chain management system provides better visibility and can view stock history for any product. The users are informed about the stock levels, which in turn help in reducing the risk of stock-outs.
This free warehouse management tool reduces wastage by employing FEFO (first-expiry-first-out) strategy that makes sure medicine will be used before the expiration. The users can analyze easily accessible demand data as this warehouse management tool provides the functionality of better forecasting.
By employing data standards, this web-based application helps in improving traceability. It can efficiently handle exceptional product lifecycle events as product recalls.
(Source: openboxes)
Key features:
- Inventory Management
- Electronic stock Card
- Stock Movements
- Inventory Tracking (lot and expiry tracking)
- Dashboard
- Reporting
- Flexible Location Hierarchy
- Security
- Support for Multiple Languages
- Custom attributes
- Email Notifications
- Stock List Management
- Flexible deployment options
- Shipment Tracking
- Purchase orders
- Stock requisitions and fulfilment
Odoo MRP (free and open source)
Odoo MRP is the open source warehouse Management Software that helps in creating a new warehouse and new location. You will find the unique value proposition of this free warehouse management tool fully integrated and easy-to-use.
You can maximize your warehouse efficiency with this warehouse management tool. With the help of the smart double entry inventory system, you can organize your warehouse functionalities efficiently. The software allows its user to improve performance and process time effortlessly.. In your supply chain, you can experience total traceability with Odoo. It provides clear and complete real-time reports.
Sales, purchase, and accounting functionalities are fully integrated with this application. The user can manage any warehouse by using cutting-edge automation and advanced routes of this software.
(Source:Odoo MRP)
Key features:
- Multi-warehouse
- Drop-Shipping
- Inventory adjustments
- Channel Management
- Backups and Integration
- Labor Management
- Location Control
- Shipping Management
- Tracking and Analysis
- Quality Control
- Stock management
- Demand Planning
- Barcoding /RFID (radio frequency distribution)
- Cross-docking
Acctivate Inventory Software
Acctivate Inventory Software is an operational hub for growing small to mid-sized distributors, online retailers, and manufacturers using QuickBooks®. The sophisticated solution promotes collaboration across the entire company with tools that deliver comprehensive business management, including real-time visibility of inventory, multi-channel sales, purchasing, order fulfillment + more. Operations are accelerated from customer service to the warehouse and key insights enable strategic decision-making. Acctivate replaces manual, error-prone methods like spreadsheets and helps solve virtually any business and industry specific challenge. Integrations to best-in-class technologies for eCommerce, EDI and more simplify business processes; and intelligent functionality for lot & serial number traceability, landed cost, mobile warehouse management and more enhance productivity and streamline operations. Acctivate is an ERP alternative that works with QuickBooks to serve SMBs looking to scale operational capabilities without settling for a costly, overserving mid-market ERP software. In turn, their warehouse is optimized, inventory investments protected, and customer satisfaction exceeded.
Finale Inventory
Finale Inventory is an intuitive cloud-based inventory management system that is easy to use while designed to scale to the demands of a growing business. Handle all your stock movements from purchasing through to sales. From the ShipStation inventory management integration, QuickBooks integration, and Kitting (Product Bundling) feature, Finale offers a comprehensive solution for multi-channel ecommerce retailers. Finale Inventory makes it a snap to manage your inventory across all the marketplaces (e.g. eBay, Amazon, Magento) products are sold. Prevent overselling and receiving negative reviews by having Finale sync inventory stock levels backs to your selling marketplaces. Additionally, Finale can support support 2 Million products and 1/2 millions orders / month for high volume customers. For warehouse distribution companies, Finale offers offers a comprehensive out-of-the-box barcode solution that doesn’t require a small team of expensive integration consultants to get everything up and running. Finale Inventory supports many barcode configurations – whether you print your own labels, or use the manufacturer applied barcodes, use serial numbers, product IDs, lot IDs, pre-printed barcode labels, or generic sequential barcode labels – Finale has you covered. Additionally lot id tracking, serial number tracking and multi-location support, Finale offer a complete solution at an affordable price.
Cin7
If you’re looking for an exhaustive bundle of features that brings just about everything you need into one cloud package, Cin7 is a great place to start looking.
With an all-in-one inventory management suite like this one, you’ll be able to:
- Link your point-of-sale (POS) software directly to your stock system – so your sales teams can sell products directly from your warehouse, or from goods that are still in transit
- Connect your software to all the hardware devices you need – things like barcode scanners, receipt printers, cash drawers, and mobile devices or tablets for doing stock-takes on the move
- Create unlimited stores and warehouses (for both real and virtual locations), with options for storing products in multiple locations
- Get detailed real-time reports and insights about your sales, stock levels, and costs – with custom KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and automated reports to help you avoid manual entry
On top of all that, Cin7 also comes with options for integration with 3PL (third-party logistics) and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange – which is essential if you want to start selling to bigger retailers in the future).
Cin7 starts at £199 per month for basic users, with a free trial available on request.
Unleashed
While Cin7 positions itself as an all-in-one package for any business that sells, Unleashed has a tighter focus: it’s mostly aimed at manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers.
So if you’re a B2B business (and especially one that builds products) you’re in luck. Unleashed comes with a wealth of crucial features, such as:
- A dedicated B2B e-commerce portal – where your customers can manage repeat orders, check the availability of your stock, and keep track of the orders they’ve placed with you
- Access to detailed bills of materials and recipes – so you can manage your stock levels for individual components, and automatically add their costs to your finished products
- Batch and serial number tracking – so you can identify and trace both your raw materials and your finished products in case there are any problems.
Since Unleashed is focused almost entirely on B2B production and sales, you won’t find the same built-in options for things like POS.
But it does have a huge marketplace of available add-on apps that it can integrate with. So if your manufacturing business also needs these customer-based options, it’s easy to add on new functions as you go.
Unleashed starts at £66 per month (for one user), with a 14-day free trial if you want to test things out for yourself.
ABC Inventory
If you’re a young business with a tight budget (or a freelancer working on your own), you might not be ready to commit to a paid service without first seeing what an inventory management package can do.
If that sounds like you, you ought to give ABC Inventory a try.
It’s a completely free alternative to apps like Cin7 and Unleashed. And for a single user, you can manage:
- Multiple companies, warehouses, and currencies
- Automatic purchase orders and quotes
- Serial numbers, pick-and-pack lists, barcode scanning, and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)
- And multi-level bills of materials
The free version gives you an unlimited number of records, and it can be installed on an unlimited number of workstations.
However, you won’t be able to link different workstations so they share the same data – and you won’t get any email or phone support for the software.
ABC Inventory is completely free – and it’s a great way to dip your toes into inventory management software.
But while there is an option to upgrade to a paid service, you might feel more secure looking at one of the bigger and more established bits of software if you want to be completely future-proof.
Conclusion:
Everybody knows that Amazon is a household name when it comes to warehouse management software for small businesses. They will take care of the inventory, they will take care of shipping and they even have their own warehouse management system. However, there are many business owners who do not have the budget to purchase Amazon’s warehouse management system. This creates a huge market for software with similar functionalities but at a vastly affordable price.