Excel or Warehouse Management Software
Warehouse management for sellers and businesses is extremely important, equivalent to optimizing and increasing sales. Because inventory management is not closely followed, it can easily lead to loss and damage of goods, leading to inefficient use of capital and reduced profits. Using Excel to manage inventory is a simple method used by many businesses. However, with the current technological changes and sales trends, warehouse management with Excel is no longer suitable. Here are the disadvantages of this method of warehouse management using Excel:
- The first disadvantage of Excel is that it can only handle offline data. Data information cannot be updated anytime, anywhere and cannot be managed over the internet.
- The functions used on Excel are quite complex and if you want to be proficient in using Excel for reporting and analysis, you need a highly specialized user.
- Data must be entered manually, which takes time.
- Cannot connect to devices that support warehouse management such as warehouse checkers, barcode scanners, ..
- Does not handle well when there is a lot of data, it is easy to confuse when the lookup is only suitable for small business models.
- Difficult to manage when there are many warehouses or need to control debts with many units.
- Not suitable for the online sales model, the multi-channel sales model has complex warehouse management tasks.
An alternative solution to using Excel for warehouse management for online businesses, multi-channel sales
Currently, there are many pre-programmed sales management software to help business units manage inventory and sales more simply and effectively. The feature comparison table between using Excel for warehouse management and using warehouse management software below will clearly show you how the application of management software technology to sales has outstanding benefits:
| Excel | Sales management software |
| Manual data entry, data must be compared with vouchers | Support synchronization of data about products and inventory, orders from sales channels to reduce data entry time |
| The information input interface is a spreadsheet | Flexible data entry interface supports intuitive product image import |
| Difficult to trace transactions to find errors | Easily retrieve transactions when discrepancies occur |
| It’s not convenient to follow updates anytime, anywhere | Store information on the cloud, easy to track updates anywhere with an internet |
| Does not support connection to other software and hardware that support sales | Easily support the connection of other sales and warehouse management support software and hardware |
| Requires employees to have certain Excel knowledge | Simple, easy to use without knowing too many calculation formulas like Excel |
Omni-channel sales management system Omisell very well supports the management of single and multi-point warehouses for online sellers, especially those selling goods on e-commerce websites such as Shopee, Lazada, Sendo, etc. Tiki,… Omisell’s outstanding warehouse management features include:
- Multipoint inventory management.
- Automated inventory sync.
- Advanced inventory: Divide inventory by sales channel by appropriate time.
- Buffer inventory: Update the stock of goods for use in case of an emergency.
- Additional inventory: Adding additional inventory items to estimate goods can be replenished in time to help sellers be proactive in participating in promotional programs on e-commerce platforms.
>>> Related post: How to Set Up an Optimal Self-Storage Warehouse