Inventory Management Articles

Can flexibility co-exist with ease of use? Our resident expert Alan Wright explores some simple storage and promotions that can have big benefits.

One of the reasons why everyone loved the old paper and pen system of recording was because of the flexibility involved. What you wrote became store record and whatever you deleted was completely removed from store record. Compared to a complex and constantly updated system that saves everything, it's understandable why this might seem to be a disadvantage. However, software that is truly advanced and client-centric makes it a point to enhance flexible operation, not limit your freedoms.

Easy Storage

For instance, managers can alter their company invoices, even integrating their iMagic system with other programs, such as MS Office. Managers can design their own layout of invoice by simply choosing the "Custom Invoice" option. Backing up data is no problem since the entire company database is stored in a central file, back that up and you're done.

One of the best features of the system is its auto-saving, which ensures that all information is inserted into the system database "live" as you use it. It's fully automated and automatically cross referenced.

Easy Commission Tracking

You can track all the activity of your sales representatives by accessing the User Access feature, which can report on items sold and commission tracking. In fact, if you assign logins for each employee, you can generate commission based reports based on invoice sales.

Customize the Promotion

One very important part of sales is the promotion, the seasonal discount or even the "once in a lifetime sale" that grabs customers' attention. Isn't it a headache to track this sort of thing with software, since prices are set by default? No, because promotions can be customized and coupons or discounts can be entered into the system. You can standardize all items for a discount or mark specific items only for a markdown.

Most managers would tell you that it's difficult to reconcile and organize short-term discount sales without some form of automation. Pen and paper is so disorganized when it comes to tracking promotional sales that most managers couldn't even track how much they sold of discounted merchandise without breaking out calculators and taking hours at a time to figure out the profit.

Inventory management software like iMagic Inventory lets you have full control over "markdown management features", which means you can program markdowns and record all transactions accordingly.

Price reduction and subsequently tracking sales has proven to be a major obstacle to small business. With iMagic, you don't have to worry about totaling receipts or manually categorizing sales since the automated process records and stores markdowns, separating them from the rest of your inventory and reporting on it according to profit and loss, inventory tracking, and other reports.

With a program like iMagic, you are not paying for merely a program but a multi-tool package that gives you complete control over every process. You can access multidimensional inventory management tools, such as alternate units of measurement, dimensional data, component quantities, and so on. You can also conduct stock counts, transfer stock, and instantly order merchandise or set an auto-order feature whenever stock levels dwindle.

This is a program that minimizes "waste", be it costly business practices or bad time investments that end up costing the company money. iMagic Inventory reduces labor costs while improving productivity, always reporting to you the bottom line, regardless of how closely you want to customize your business. You never "answer to the computer"... instead the computer takes your orders. It's all about giving the store owner his/her freedom and improving productivity!