Inventory Management Integrations: Automate and Gain Insight into Your Business
By Rackbeat June 21, 2024
Efficient Inventory Management in Coordination with Your Other Systems
Things are moving rapidly in the digital age which means that your business is expected to deliver on the major buzzword of today: efficiency.
Particularly for companies handling physical products, well-organized inventory management is crucial for timely deliveries. But what does it really mean to have efficient inventory management?
A significant part of the answer lies in inventory management integrations. These refer to the interaction between your inventory management and other critical business systems, such as your accounting system, shipping system, POS, and webshop. With a tight and automated link between these, your administrative burden is significantly reduced, and workflows become much more seamless.
These inventory management integrations ensure that your data syncs freely, meaning that areas like order management, invoicing, inventory value adjustments and shipping bookings operate as automatically as possible.
Let’s dive deeper into why these integrations are so important and what benefits they offer.
Integration with Accounting Systems
Having updated inventory values, purchase and sales reports at your fingertips and accurate bookkeeping is crucial for your company’s growth and overall financial health.
Integrating your inventory management with your accounting system means that your product data and invoices are automatically transferred to your accounts whenever a purchase, sale, inventory adjustment, or return order is recorded. This integration offers several benefits:
- Less manual work: Data is transferred automatically, reducing the amount of manual entry required.
- Fewer errors: Automated processes minimize the risk of human error.
- An up-to-date view of your financial situation: Inventory and financial data are always synchronized, providing an accurate overview.
- Automatic invoice transfer: Invoices are transferred to the accounting system when you process your orders in the inventory system, streamlining your workflows, ensuring optimal customer service, and keeping your records in order.
Integration with Webshops
Customers rarely enjoy waiting long for their products. Therefore, it is especially important for e-commerce businesses that the inventory in the webshop always matches the actual inventory on the floor, allowing you to deliver orders on time.
With an inventory management integration, you ensure that your inventory and webshop are synchronized in real time, without lengthy manual data entry. As soon as an online sale is registered, the inventory is automatically adjusted, and the sales order appears in your order overview in the inventory system. The integration provides:
- Real-time inventory synchronization: Inventory levels are updated instantly to reflect the actual status.
- Consolidation of your sales channels: When your inventory is integrated with your sales channels, you get a comprehensive overview of all sales, regardless of whether they are recorded in the cash register, webshop or manually entered.
Avoid over- or understocking: With precise data, businesses can optimize their inventory levels, avoid heavy capital binding in the inventory and prevent empty shelves.
Integration with Point of Sales (POS)
Physical stores can also benefit from an inventory management integration between the inventory system and the POS system. When a customer makes a purchase in-store, the inventory is automatically updated.
This eliminates the need to manually update the inventory in a spreadsheet or the POS system’s inventory module, ensuring that inventory data is always accurate. The integration provides:
- Automatic inventory updates: Inventory is updated immediately with each sale, ensuring accurate inventory data without delays, reducing the risk of stockouts.
- Location management: With location management, businesses get a digital overview of their inventory down to the shelf level, making it easier for employees to quickly find and pick items.
Reports and purchase management: Inventory systems allow you to generate reports on your purchases and sales. These reports strengthen your purchase management, providing a solid basis for understanding how quickly items sell, allowing you to make timely purchases directly from the inventory system.
Integration with Shipping Systems
Effective handling of your shipments is another critical component of solid inventory management. By integrating the inventory system with the shipping system, your entire order process can be optimized – from ordering and registration to packing and shipping. Specifically, it offers:
- Structured order process from ordering to delivery: The integration between the inventory management system and the shipping system provides an overview of the entire order process – from the moment a customer places an order until the item is delivered, as you get a complete order overview in the inventory system with the ability to attach tracking information to the orders.
Faster and more efficient order handling: Warehouse staff are automatically notified of new orders and can quickly pick and pack the items. Shipping labels and shipping information are generated automatically, ensuring that shipments are planned and dispatched without unnecessary delays.
Inventory Management Integrations with Rackbeat
The benefits of integrating inventory management with other business systems are many, but generally, two things stand out:
1. Automation and synchronization save you time and reduce the risk of errors.
2. Your business gets a more accurate and updated picture of inventory, orders, invoices, and shipments.
These advantages make it much easier for you to make informed decisions, optimize inventory levels, and improve customer service.
For businesses that want to stay competitive, inventory management integrations are not just a smart solution – they are a necessity.
You can read more about inventory management integrations in Rackbeat’s integrations. Rackbeat’s WMS can work with most webshops, POS accounting systems, and shipping systems, so you don’t have to struggle with manual or duplicate work.