QuickBooks Inventory: A Simple Way to Transform Inventory Management

Do you want to be on top of everything when managing your inventory from raw materials to finished goods? This process is not as easy since every stage of a product, from the moment it enters the warehouse until it is shipped to the customer, needs to be closely monitored and supervised. To manage inventory effectively, you need a powerful tool to support you as your business grows and the number of orders and products increases. Manual methods are no longer “enough” to help you track inventory as well as grow the business. Any mistake in handling inventory could have a ripple effect that negatively impacts your business for months or years. Embracing efficient inventory management software can make it easy and less time-consuming. 

Let’s find out how inventory control software QuickBooks transforms the way your inventory is managed.

Why use inventory management software?

An inventory management software can help you overcome the difference between surviving and thriving. In a modern competitive business environment, Inventory management software can be beneficial for your business in many ways.

  • It helps in centralizing inventory data and automates essential processes related to inventory management
  • It can track, organize, and manage stock levels, sales, and orders.
  • With features like real-time tracking, barcode scanning, and analytics, it provides actionable insights and aids effective decision-making
  • It improves accuracy, saves time and money, and enhances customer satisfaction level

If you are searching for an efficient and reasonably priced inventory management software, QuickBooks Inventory Management can be the perfect choice. Whether you are running a retail store or a manufacturing plant, how efficiently you manage your inventory can make or break your business. QuickBooks Inventory Management Software helps you effectively manage your inventory and always keep yourself abreast with what you have in your inventory and what you need before you even need it.

When it comes to businesses that are already using QuickBooks and looking for a powerful inventory solution to manage inventory and orders, inventory control software QuickBooks is a practical choice. Why?

First, QuickBooks inventory control software is seamlessly integrated with your existing QuickBooks account. This gives you a strong complementary inventory solution that enhances your operations and improves efficiency across your entire business, from purchasing to storage, sales to fulfillment, yet maintaining your current workflow in QuickBooks.

Second, because QuickBooks inventory is integrated with EMERGE, you can now synchronize data between both platforms. Your data will be stored centrally in one place, eliminating unnecessary steps like double data entry. All data now updates and synchronizes automatically between the two systems.

Third, you gain a new, more efficient system for your business with only a small investment. How? Because it works as a 2-in-1 solution. You keep your accounting functions in QuickBooks while integrating inventory and order management through EMERGE. This means you don’t have to pay for a separate system, or worry whether it will work well with your current accounting setup in QuickBooks.

These are the key reasons why you should choose inventory control software QuickBooks for your business, especially if you’ve been using QuickBooks for a long time and are familiar with the system. Now, let’s explore exactly what inventory control software QuickBooks can do for your business.

Key Features of QuickBooks Inventory Software

QuickBooks Inventory software is adorned with various features enabling businesses to manage their inventory easily, efficiently, and effectively. Here are the key features of QuickBooks Inventory Software

Real-time inventory tracking

Inventory control software QuickBooks provides robust tools for tracking inventory in real-time, so you can stay updated all the time about the quantity and location of your products, ensuring you never run out of stock or oversupply.

  • Track your inventory in real time, whether it is incoming goods from purchase orders or outgoing goods from delivery orders, you will always have accurate figures on the actual stock available in stock.
  • In EMERGE, users are mostly wholesale distribution and trading businesses, so the utilization of multiple warehouse and location management is common. You can create and monitor multiple warehouses and locations easily since the inventory control software QuickBooks is cloud-based. All processes and information are updated in real time. Usually, when a customer buys something, you can check the available stock in the nearest location, consider the oldest batch, or choose any place that gives the best result.
  • All inventory movements will be recorded in the Inventory Movement Report, providing you the value of each inventory movement as well as the remaining value in stock. This indirectly helps you control the value of inventory at any time and have a better arrangement for your warehouse plan. Such as arranging the fast-moving items in the easy-pick-up area and the way around with slow-moving-items.
  • EMERGE uses the FIFO (First In, First Out) method, which reflects the value of remaining inventory based on the most recent purchase price. Especially in times of price volatility and inflation, this is the recommended method that accurately reflects the cost of inventory. 

In terms of efficiency, having the right information at the right time, especially inventory data, can be half the battle for your sales staff when dealing with customers. In many cases, your sales team needs to know exactly how much inventory the company currently has or can potentially sell, and offer the best discounts based on quantity. Using QuickBooks inventory management software allows your sales staff to access real-time data from anywhere, on any device, at any time. In short, it provides the convenience and advantages of modern technology. 

Imagine you have a sales person who is also a manager and he happens to be away on a business trip. And somehow he strikes a deal with a guy who is waiting to board a flight to the Canton Fair. That guy asks for the discount he can get by buying your product in bulk in the manner of time, and your sales person doesn’t know the exact quantity available to offer, you lose a deal. 

Speaking of cloud-based software in general, and mobile access specifically, your sales reps can literally enjoy the convenience and flexibility of using the EMERGE mobile inventory app in this situation. Basically, with a phone connected to the internet, they can:

  • Create new customers and assign them to specific discount and price lists, or simply view their information such as orders, unpaid amounts, overdue amounts, etc.
  • Access product information and inventory levels anytime, giving them precise data to make decisions about discounts or negotiate deals with customers.
  • Track the status of orders and processes. If the user is a manager, orders such as sales orders or delivery orders can be sent to them, and they can review and approve them directly from their phone. So, even if they are on a business trip and don’t have a laptop with them, they can still use their phone to approve important processes.

Purchase Order Management

Inventory control software QuickBooks provides purchase order management features that allows you to seamlessly create, track, and manage purchase orders seamlessly, from initiation to fulfillment.

  • Customer and supplier related data like deposit notes, order totals, special discounts, terms and conditions etc. are well managed in EMERGE. You have a separate module to track and monitor this data, one for customers and one for suppliers. 
  • When you export invoices from EMERGE to QuickBooks, the data is synchronized and if any customer or vendor name does not already exist in QuickBooks, it is automatically created. This makes managing your data easier and more accurate as it reduces duplicate data entry across both platforms.

In terms of purchase order management, QuickBooks inventory management software provides full-stack functionality to handle inventory and orders at the same time in advance.

  • The Order Reminder function will then send you an alert along with a proposed purchase order including the exact items and quantities that you lack.
  • You can also issue backordering or dropshipping in situations where you don’t have enough stock in your warehouse.
  • The performance of suppliers is also tracked by the system with reconciliation based on the supplier’s delivery time.
  • In advance, you can even send mass Requests for Quotation to multiple suppliers and pull out a report that compares all the offers based on their terms, prices, and conditions. 

Just as important as sales, purchasing activities also contribute to your bottom line. This is a good point to have inventory management software Quickbooks, which can solve problems in a timely manner and help you make better purchasing decisions.

Sales Order Management

When it comes to sales order management, with EMERGE, you gain a complete order solution that offers flexibility in managing different sales workflows and handling orders from multiple sales channels in one place. The sales order management feature allows users to easily organize incoming orders, track order status, and manage order fulfillment, ensuring timely delivery and customer satisfaction.

  • Manage multiple sales channels from direct sales to online sales just on one listing page. So, no matter if it’s from your sales rep or from Shopify, you can always find the order with the tag/icon that identifies them in your listing page.
  • The main point here is that all orders will then be centralized in one place, so every movement of the stock related to these orders will be updated in real time. This is the biggest reason why you should transform your operations using software instead of manual methods, which are outdated and make no sense for a growing business handling a flood of orders from multiple sales channels.
  • The real-time inventory levels updated by incoming purchase orders and outgoing sales orders from different sales channels provide you with accurate data that allow you to see how business is going from a broader perspective and gain more data of which sales channels are performing well and which are not.

From another lens, sales order management can be seen from the perspective of the employees instead of managers. This leads to another reason for the need of an order management software. Your warehouse staff can now benefit from inventory management software like QuickBooks, not only your accountants and managers.

  • With the sales order features, your employees in the warehouse can now place retail orders using the retail workflow in EMERGE directly from their phones.
  • With the same phone, warehouse employees can perform fulfillment and warehouse activities like transferring stock, dispatching, and placing sales orders for customers physically in the warehouse or your brick-and-mortar store.
  • For various reasons, whether from your customers or your own company, you may need to ship only part of an order to a customer. In this case, having a system that can manage separate shipments and different invoices together is crucial for accuracy. You can easily create partial or full shipments, along with the corresponding partial or full invoices that need to be issued to your customers.

Many cases where your customers place multiple orders and then want to consolidate them into a single shipment. This happens a lot with international orders, when both sellers and buyers want to optimize shipping fees. In EMERGE, you can simply consolidate multiple sales orders into one shipment for your customer. Invoices will then be generated corresponding to each sales order.

Barcode Scanning and Mobile Access

Barcode scanning simplifies inventory tasks and minimizes errors. It allows you to easily expedite processes such as receiving, picking, and shipping, improving accuracy and efficiency across your operations. In inventory control software QuickBooks, the barcode scanning system is integrated seamlessly into the workflow so that you can speed up operations just by scanning. Additionally, the mobile version of EMERGE makes this QuickBooks inventory software even more powerful as you can simply scan barcodes and perform tasks right on your mobile phone. Here is exactly what you can do with the barcode scanning system in QuickBooks inventory software EMERGE:

  • Generate and print barcodes and labels for products directly in the software. The type of barcode can be flexibly adjusted in the company settings, whether you need EAN, UPC, or Code-128.
  • Barcode scanning can be performed in processes like adding items to Sales Orders or Purchase Orders, dispatching shipments, and performing stock transfers. With a Bluetooth barcode scanner paired to the phone or laptop, your employees can now carry out their tasks by scanning barcodes instead of using lots of spreadsheets and paper.

Let’s think about when each process becomes a little bit faster and more precise, this reduces human error and prevents double work. This whole scanning system, when seen in the bigger picture of your growing business, can make a big difference in improving efficiency. In the long term, the development of a company depends a lot on strong and efficient operations. So in the first place, businesses should focus more on the basic functions like purchasing, storing, selling, fulfillment, and after-sales service in a proper way. And making the whole workflow smooth and optimized, whether by time or accuracy, should be one of the main priorities at this stage.

Analytics and Forecasting

As an important part of running a business, analysis and reporting are processes that provide managers accurate numbers on revenue, profit, losses, expenses, etc., for decision-making and compliance reporting in financial books. With inventory control software QuickBooks, you now have the ability to access insightful reports generated by both accounting systems as well as inventory order management systems. 

In inventory and order management software EMERGE, you can generate reports on sales, purchases, products, and inventory. These reports include multiple filters that let you view data based on your specific needs whether by product line, time period, or customer. Regarding basic reports such as: sales reports, inventory list reports, inventory movement reports, purchase reports, etc., EMERGE also provides advanced reports for higher level analysis needs.

  • Sales Trend Reports and Product Trend Reports take data from a period starting from six months and sales data during this period, then report to you which products are trending, which products are slow, as well as sales trends over a given period.
  • If you manage products in batches, you can view relevant reports along the product timeline to track expiration dates as well as remaining inventory values.
  • Accounts Receivable and Account Payable Reports are where you can view all information related to customer invoices and supplier invoices including details such as credit, debit, total debit/credit balance or total invoice amounts and due dates.

With these on hand, you will now have a broader view of your operations at any given time, as well as the financial situation linked to each customer or supplier, helping you understand your cash flow better and make precise decisions with it.

Tax Mapping and Data synchronization

While EMERGE handles the full inventory, purchase, and order management process, QuickBooks plays an important role in managing accounting aspects. When you use inventory control  software QuickBooks, it means your QuickBooks account is seamlessly integrated with the EMERGE system. This allows all financial data to be synced between the two platforms, eliminating the need for manual data entry on both the accounting and inventory sides.

  • You can export invoices and credit notes from EMERGE to QuickBooks as well as import invoices, payment statuses back to EMERGE. Once a customer makes a payment, the status in EMERGE will automatically update in real time.
  • Information such as customers, suppliers, tax codes, and tax rates can also be mapped and synced smoothly. If a customer record has not yet been exported to QuickBooks, the system will automatically create a new customer there when you export an invoice or credit note from EMERGE.

In EMERGE, you can create multiple tax codes, tax types and map them to QuickBooks. Common examples include S10 (Standard Sales Tax VAT – 10%), P10 (Purchase Tax VAT – 10%), and Z0 (Zero-rate Export VAT – 0%).

In short, integration and synchronization are crucial approaches for small and medium-sized businesses in today’s market. Having a main system to manage your operations and integrate with multiple software solutions is not only a comprehensive approach but also saves time and money compared to deploying separate platforms. To provide a more comprehensive solution for inventory and order management, EMERGE now cooperates with multiple solution providers in different fields. This makes the integration more complete for business management, covering areas such as accounting, payment, delivery, and e-commerce.

Inventory control software QuickBooks represents the collaboration between EMERGE (inventory and order management software) and QuickBooks (accounting software). This integration enhances the strengths of both systems. If you are already using QuickBooks for accounting, EMERGE acts as a powerful booster for your business in terms of inventory control and order monitoring.