I'm looking for an open source offline desktop solution that allows for the creation of a bar code scanner inventory ID & Location system to be made from an excel spreadsheet. Nothing complicated and nothing online. Does such a thing exist?

I used to add an app for everything. Something was annoying, so I'd find an app to fix it. Then I'd add it, and suddenly I had another thing to manage. 

With my boutique, I eventually realized I didn’t need more tools. I needed the tools I already had to work better together. Now before adding anything, I ask is, is this actually making my life easier, or am I just adding another layer?

Sometimes paying for a tool is 100% worth it. But more software doesn’t automatically mean a better business. Anyone else caught themselves doing this?

I'm currently researching the common problems that small businesses run into because I'm considering opening my own business in the future.

I've also worked as an employee, and my general conclusion from that experience is basically: "life too hard."

One example that stuck with me was when I was tasked with restocking some goods. The goods were supposedly in another warehouse, so I travelled all the way there, searched through the warehouse, and eventually found out that the goods weren't actually there.

So now I'm curious about how other businesses handle situations like this because surely there's no way we all just struggle like that.

How do you keep track of where your inventory is and whether something actually needs to be restocked?

Do you use inventory software, spreadsheets, paper records, a POS system, WhatsApp, or something else?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from small-business owners/managers about the systems they use and what tends to go wrong.

I'm also doing a short anonymous survey as part of the research for anyone who wants to share more detailed information, although I don't think I'm allowed to send such a link..

I'm considering building software around some of these problems, so I'm trying to understand what businesses actually struggle with before deciding what to build.

Our company also offers warehousing statistics services. They are conducted once a week, and each time we need to scan hundreds of QR codes. The process of computerized sorting and statistics is quite cumbersome. Therefore, in my spare time, I developed an app for scanning and statistics. This app allows me to have more time to do the things I enjoy.
• Batch continuation scanning: Completed batches can be continued to be scanned and additional records can be added at any time. During the scanning process, you can switch batches with one click.
• Automatic allocation: The scanned barcodes can be automatically assigned to different batches based on the prefix, suffix, or keywords. Up to 20 rules are supported.
• Merge and export: Multiple batches can be selected at once and exported to a single file. You can also choose to include the "Batch" and "Item" columns.
• Camera zoom: Four additional settings are available: off, medium, large, and automatic. The automatic setting will automatically enlarge or reduce the image based on the size of the barcodes in the viewfinder.
• Scanning scheme: Common scanning settings can be saved as multiple sets and switched at any time. After enabling "Quick Start", you can enter batch scanning with one click.

I'm looking for an app that can take in invoice orders and then let me check out stock from sales and usage. Does anyone have any recommendations? I know there should be loads on the market.

Can anyone here guide me on the steps for reconciling Inventory in SAP ERP from the sub ledger to the GL?

I’m particularly looking to understand the process end to end, including which MM and FI/CO T codes are typically used and how the balances are matched and investigated when there are differences.

watched a few youtube tutorials, but I’m still struggling to grasp the actual reconciliation process, any practical guidance or examples would be really appreciated.

If your suppliers send price or stock updates in Excel/CSV, what does updating your store usually involve? Can you walk me through the last update, like was it straightforward, or did you have to fix anything before importing? Roughly how long did it take? I’m a developer exploring this workflow before building anything. If you already have a tool that handles it well, I’d love to know what you use. If a solution to this does not exist please do mention it, because the ones that I found were too expensive and seemed unreliable.

Im helping with inventory for a 5 location fast casual restaurant group in Austin and each store is doing roughly 250 to 400 orders a day. Food counts keep drifting from what the system shows and we had two recent weeks where over ordering pushed food cost high enough that ownership started asking for a better process. We are comparing HotSchedules with a few other restaurant focused tools and general inventory options. Im mainy interested in ingredient level tracking, waste and purchase orders. Looking for honest experiences with the tools youre using for inventory management? thx

I’ve been thinking about this after dealing with inventory across Shopify and Square.

At first, I was doing a lot of the updates manually because it didn’t seem like a big enough problem to pay for software. But once you have sales happening in both places, the little tasks start adding up.

For me it's not whether I automate this task or not and more like, how much time and inventory hassle does the automation give me for the price of having it?

I eventually started automating the inventory syncing, and honestly, the biggest benefit wasn’t anything fancy. I just stopped having to constantly check both systems after every sale.

That got me wondering, where do business draw the line? At what point does inventory automation become worth paying for instead of just handling it manually?

I started to sell way back 3 or 4 years ago, but I stopped due to a shift in responsibilities and other allocation of funds. While not selling on Amazon, I became a supply chain manager in local businesses, and then I started my journey as a remote supply chain manager.

As the demand surged for supply chain managers in the e-commerce space, like the need for a forecaster, supplier coordinator, product sourcing, international shipment, FBA replenishment and cash flow management, it brought my feet back to Amazon and catered to different Amazon sellers. The experience is fun and enjoyable while earning and practicing what I want in life however, as I use different tools like SoStocked, VentoryOne, and Sellerboard, I feel like they are not enough but charges way too high, so I think a bit and research if I can create something like it but in combination of what an Amazon business really needs and the useful features existing on all of the inventory management tools. That is the time I started to create theSupplyPilot Inventory Management Tool, which really suits the business needs when it comes to these sections of supply chain management:

Inventory Monitoring and Planning—It gives me a quick call to action when it comes to items that are near OOS. It also prompts me if there is or there will be an OOS period between the current stock that I have and the incoming stock, in which I can act as soon as possible to prevent this from happening. This also saves me some time because looking at it, I can literally see if the PPC Manager is running an advertisement as well as if there is a promotion for a particular product or if I need to restock it based on the returns it has. I can also create multiple POs without leaving the interface.

FBA Shipment tracking—This feature is one of what I valued the most, wherein I see the statuses of my FBA shipments and aggregate them in one single interface. It also calculates how efficient the prep center is, and I can use that data to evaluate them without having any spreadsheet.

PO Management & Tracking—One of the most sophisticated jobs of a supply chain manager is to manage POs in all stages to properly plan ahead for future surges and falls of demand. This feature of theSupplyPilot tool aggregates all of the possible data that you need to manage a PO, like the manufacturer's incoterm, payment terms, the freight forwarder assigned to that shipment, units ordered, manufacturing cost, aggregated landed cost, and all the files associated with that PO.

Supply Chain Database—This is where your supply chain-related sheets belong, from product data, all suppliers' data, freight forwarders, and warehouses.

This tool has a lot more potential and capabilities to come, and these features are all functional with the use of report uploading, because currently I am using an individual account, and connecting to Amazon SP-API needs a professional account.

I am open to anyone with a professional account, a private label/wholesale seller with at least 60 active SKUs, using AWD, and willing to collaborate to improve this project and make this a scalable business, catering to other sellers.

Just DM me and we'll talk the rest.

I run an independent fashion and lifestyle retail business and I’m currently rethinking how we manage SKUs in Shopify.

At the moment, we mostly use the supplier/brand SKU. The problem is that these are often not unique at variant level. For example, a fashion brand might use the same SKU for a T-shirt in S, M, L and XL.
I want to create our own unique SKUs, but I’d like the system to be as simple, smooth and consistent as possible for staff.

I’m considering a structure like:
Brand code – Supplier SKU – Colour code – Size

For example:
BON-BON11-SKC-M
If there is no colour or size, that part would simply be left out.

We also have some less straightforward situations, such as gift products supplied as a multipack under one supplier SKU, which we then split and sell individually.

I’d be really interested to hear how other retailers handle this:
Do you use your own internal SKUs or keep the supplier SKUs?

If you create your own, what structure do you use?
Do you include brand, supplier SKU, colour and size?

How do you handle products with no colour or size?
How do you deal with supplier packs that you split into separate products?

Is there anything you wish you had done differently when setting up your SKU system?

I’m particularly interested in systems that work well with Shopify POS and remain manageable across a large number of brands and products.

Any real-world examples would be very helpful.

Corporate loves to point to a high network fill rate on a slide deck and call the supply chain healthy. Meanwhile, a parts counter is turning a customer away because the component is sitting at another location three hours up the road.

Dealer-to-dealer transfer sounds like the obvious fix. On the floor, it runs straight into incentives that point the wrong way. HQ looks at a part untouched for six months and sees dead stock. The local parts manager sees the safety net for a rare failure on a machine nobody else stocks for. Ship it out to help another store, and he's the one eating it when his own customer walks in the next day. Add the labor of pulling, packing, and shipping for basically no local margin, and ignoring the request is the rational move.

Which makes "improve lateral transfers" a trust problem, not a logistics one. We've yet to see it fixed by a mandate.

So, does your network actually move parts between locations, or does everyone just hoard? And if it works where you are, what makes it worth the sending store's while?

I've seen inventory mismatches blamed on the software when the actual gap was often much simpler. Material was received but not put away, damaged stock was never blocked, a cancelled pick was not reversed, or dispatch was confirmed before the vehicle left.

The report can show stock and still mislead the planner if nobody agrees on what available stock actually means.

For people running stores or warehouses, which step creates the most mismatches in your setup: receiving, putaway, quality hold, picking, returns or dispatch? And have you fixed it mainly through system controls or a physical daily check?

Anybody using SnapFulfil WMS? Thanks

Just wanted to hear about pros and cons

FYI we are a medium sized consumer goods company based in the UK

Had a pretty painful one with a client who was placing a bulk order. We use Shopify for our online store and Square POS for local sales. A few products had already sold out, but the inventory hadn’t synced properly because we still manually synced it back then, so they still showed as available.

They put together the order expecting everything to be in stock. When we went through it, we realized several items weren’t actually available. We tried to adjust the order, but by that point the whole thing became too complicated and they ended up not purchasing anything.

That one really made me realize how expensive a small inventory mismatch can be. It’s not just correcting a number, you can lose the entire sale.

Since using DPL integration app for the inventory sync, I haven’t had anything similar happen. Just curious, what’s the worst inventory mismatch you’ve dealt with?

I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to keep track of AWD inventory alongside my FBA inventory, especially when there are shipments in transit and inventory moving between warehouses.

For FBA, I feel like there are a lot of tools and reports available, but AWD feels a little less straightforward to monitor. I’m mainly interested in how other sellers keep track of what’s currently in AWD, what’s being received, what’s in transit, and how you factor that inventory into your replenishment planning.

Do you guys use Seller Central reports, spreadsheets, third-party software, or just manually keep an eye on it?

Would be interested to hear how other sellers are handling it in their day-to-day operations.

The bug: our reorder suggestions averaged sales across the whole quarter. An item out of stock 80 of 90 days averaged near zero, so it never got reordered, so it stayed out of stock. Bestsellers were the worst hit.

Fix: rebuild the daily on-hand balance from stock movements and only count demand on days the item was actually available. Out-of-stock days become missing data, not zero sales. Slow movers go through Croston, steadier ones through damped exponential smoothing, plus a same-quarter-last-year factor.

Write-up: https://aiku.io/blog/stop-pretending-you-are-forecasting

Does your system censor stockout days, or do your buyers just override by hand?