This post is for you if you own a company selling and storing a physical product at a location. Learning to keep inventory organized as a small business is crucial if you want to run a successful business.

 

What Are the Benefits

I am not an organized person naturally, but I also don’t like when I have to waste my time digging for something in my inventory pile. Creating a good system to make sure inventory is organized can help eliminate wasting time and payroll (if you have staff helping with inventory).

Another benefit to keeping inventory organized is the product is never wasted. Now, this is crucial in a food business. In a restaurant, it is already hard enough to keep costs low in many areas, but if we have the same thing in multiple areas and something goes to waste because we ‘didn’t see it,’ that is a system issue with inventory.

5 Ways to Keep Inventory Organized

Are you ready to implement some easy steps into holding your inventory? Here are five good practices.

• Make sure to have proper storage racks and room

The easiest way to keep inventory organized is when you can see it and easily count the items you have on hand. If you have to dig through boxes of stuff and at the end of counting your inventory, you have a pile of sweaters you need to put back into the box, that is inefficient.  In that case, you don’t want to do inventory ever again!

The best way to keep track of your inventory efficiently is to store all your products on racks in one area. I bet inventory will take just a few minutes rather than half your day.

• Understand product needs for your company and supplier lead times

If you are working with vendors supplying you with any product, you must understand how those vendors work. A few things to keep in mind:

How long it will take to get the product once you place an order. If the vendor ships, is it 7 days or 2 day shipping. This will determine the next step.

How far in advance you need to order to ensure you are in stock at all times. If your vendor takes 7 days to order, you will need to consider what is the lowest number of stock you want to have on hand so you never run out. That is called PAR, periodic automatic replenishment.

• Set up inventory-receiving procedures

We are all human and can make mistakes. That is why you should always check your deliveries and ensure you received everything ordered. Make sure you do this within 24 hours of your delivery. Most companies will not refund if you notify them of missing items past that 24-hour mark. If you have staff receiving orders, have them checkmark each item and ensure it was delivered and initial the invoice. This provides accountability to both your staff and the vendor.

• FIFO

I will be talking here to all the food businesses or any company with a product in stock with an expiration date. Have you heard of the FIFO method? First in, first out. If it was delivered first, it must to be also used first. Meaning, the oldest product always needs to be in front of the new product. This is how we use all of our inventory without anything going to waste.

• Make room for seasonal items

This is one mistake I always made in my company. I loved using every corner of the walk-in freezer. Any empty space needed to have something. When the holidays came around I had to find a space for the item, which meant that 2 different items were sitting on top of each other or behind something and often would be missed. My staff would be so frustrated! I look back now and see why.

Keep That Inventory Organized

These are some simple, easy ways to keep inventory organized. Grab your spreadsheets and start organizing your shelves to make money.

If you are a checklist kind of person, here are short blogs to help organize your company:

Monthly Small Business Checklist –

3 Things to Organize Social Media Content –