The Game Changer: Warehouse Management Software for Small Business

As a small business owner, you know the importance of running a streamlined, efficient operation. 

When you are just starting out, you might be able to get away with relying on various spreadsheets and order management tools to keep things moving. But as your business grows, you’ll quickly realize you need a more robust solution, such as a warehouse management system. This is where warehouse management software (WMS) comes into play.

WMS is designed to centralize all the operations and processes of a warehouse. It allows you to effectively manage and control the movement and storage of your inventory through real-time tracking and inventory tracking from the moment it arrives at your warehouse to when it leaves.

There are many solutions available in the market that identify themselves as feature-rich warehouse management software for small businesses. Some are true WMS that can scale with a business, while others pare down their focus to one area, such as inventory management or order management. In the end, you should consider the features most critical to your business while keeping in mind the need to scale in the future.

With that in mind, what do the best software and warehouse management software solutions do for small businesses?

Order Management

Order management is the critical center point of your business operations. With WMS, the entire order fulfillment process becomes streamlined, efficient and error-free. 

For example, with a Warehouse Management System, you have access to an order processing tool that centralizes all your purchase orders, automatically validates them, and then helps prioritize those orders based on their urgency or customers’ value. This automation ensures your most critical orders are processed promptly, increasing customer satisfaction.

InfoPlus also makes it possible to customize packing slips, shipping labels and other critical documents, thereby reinforcing your brand identity and creating a memorable unboxing experience for your customers.

One of the most powerful features of WMS is its capacity to integrate with other systems. InfoPlus, for instance, offers seamless integration with eCommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento, ensuring your online store and warehouse are always on the same page. This integration means you can avoid overselling inventory you don’t have, even across multiple warehouses and updating customers promptly with the status of their orders.

Finally, WMS allows you to easily manage returns. Returns are a reality in any business, and good WMS makes the returns process painless for you and your customers by maintaining optimal inventory levels. Good WMS automates your returns management process, making it easy for customers to return products and ensuring they are quickly processed and restocked.

Inventory Management

In the realm of warehousing and logistics, inventory is king. Managing inventory is critical to your business’s success, ensuring you always have the right products at the right place and time. With WMS, this complex task becomes significantly simpler and more accurate.

Comprehensive Visibility

A key feature of WMS in terms of inventory management is the visibility it provides. It allows for real-time visibility into inventory, even across multiple locations. You can view the total quantity of an item, the locations of each item within your warehouse, and the status of each item—whether it’s reserved for an order, in transit or available for sale. This real-time visibility helps reduce the risk of stockouts or overstocks.

Enhanced Accuracy

Leveraging technologies like barcode scanning and automated data collection ensures the accuracy of your inventory counts. This means no more manual counting or data entry errors, making it easier to track inventory and common sources of discrepancies in inventory records. With cycle counting you can continuously validate your inventory data without interrupting your warehouse operations, ensuring your inventory data is always up-to-date and accurate.

Efficient Stock Control

You can implement effective stock control strategies such as First-In-First-Out (FIFO) or Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) to prevent product obsolescence or spoilage. Also, WMS provides automated alerts for low stock levels, ensuring you can react quickly to prevent stockouts. This helps maintain a balanced inventory, thus saving costs and improving customer satisfaction.

Advanced Tracking

Your WMS should allow for lot tracking and serial number tracking. This advanced tracking, along with effective quality control, can be critical for businesses that need to comply with regulations or handle recalls, as it allows for full traceability of items through the supply chain.

Seamless Integration

Your WMS should also integrate with your existing eCommerce platforms, POS systems and other business software. This ensures your inventory data is always synced across all your systems, providing a single source of truth for your inventory data.

Workflow Management

In a busy warehouse, there are a multitude of tasks happening simultaneously. The smooth, coordinated execution of these tasks is fundamental to efficient operations. This is where workflow management through WMS comes in. Managing your workflows becomes significantly more effortless and effective. 

This efficiency is especially important for small businesses with fewer employees on hand to help out. In fact, getting the workflow right at this stage is critical for scaling up the business as it grows in the future. 

Receiving and Putaway

Upon the arrival of goods at your warehouse, WMS aids in efficient receiving and putaway, ensuring accurate product information and proper putaway capture. With its detailed instructions for the most efficient paths to storage, workers can avoid wasted time and effort.

Replenishment

When stock levels for pick locations are low, WMS initiates replenishment strategies, promptly restocking popular items. This helps to maintain continuous operations without the risk of pick locations running empty.

Picking and Packing

Picking and packing are perhaps the most labor-intensive processes in a warehouse. WMS simplifies this by providing optimized pick routes, batch-picking options and automatic packing instructions. It also offers advanced order picking software to improve picking efficiency and accuracy, reducing labor costs and the risk of shipping errors.

Loading and Shipping

Plan your loading process and create efficient load plans. This ensures orders are shipped out as quickly as possible, and it optimizes the use of transport capacity.

Returns

Handling returns is also a crucial part of warehouse operations. WMS makes it easy to process returns, restock items, and manage any necessary refunds or exchanges. This way, customer satisfaction is maintained even when things are unplanned.

All of these processes are coordinated seamlessly by WMS. It provides real-time visibility into the status of each process and task, making it easy for managers to monitor operations and quickly intervene when necessary.

Metrics, Analytics and Reporting

Running a successful warehouse requires efficient operations and the ability to measure and analyze your performance. This is where metrics, analytics, and reporting come in—and robust WMS can give you powerful insights into your warehouse operations.

Metrics

WMS can track a vast range of performance metrics, giving you a clear understanding of how your warehouse is performing with real-time performance metrics, including order accuracy rates, inventory turnover, order cycle time, pick rates and more. This data allows you to identify strengths and pinpoint improvement areas.

Analytics

But understanding your performance goes beyond just raw numbers. With advanced analytics you can dig deeper into your metrics, uncovering trends and patterns that might not be immediately apparent. 

Reporting

A good WMS should also provide comprehensive reporting capabilities, allowing you to generate a wide range of custom reports, from detailed inventory reports to sales and order reports, all customizable to your specific needs. This allows you to present your performance data in a way that’s both clear and digestible, whether for internal reviews or stakeholder presentations.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Most importantly, all these metrics, analytics and reports enable data-driven decision-making. Whether you’re deciding where to invest in improvements, how to streamline operations or how to forecast future demand, the data provided by your WMS can guide your decision-making process.

The benefits of implementing WMS in your growing business include reducing operational costs, increasing productivity and improving customer satisfaction. Suppose you still rely on spreadsheets or combine different software to manage your warehouse. In that case, it might be time to consider a Warehouse Management System. Not only will it streamline your operations, but it will also provide a foundation for scalable growth.

Remember, your business is growing, and the systems and processes that served you well when you were smaller might not be up to the task now. It’s important for every user to reassess your needs and upgrade to support continual growth.

In the end, WMS is an investment in your small business’ future success. Because when your warehouse operates like a well-oiled machine, the rest of your business will follow suit.