Warehouse Management Software vs. Inventory Management Software

But do what does your company really need? A fully-fledged custom warehouse management system can track everything from stock location, warehouse activity monitoring and user activity tracking, whereas asset management software is more focused on managing assets and/or inventory through a barcoding system. Warehouse management software and asset management software can be a great way to keep track of your assets and inventory, but it all begins with assessing your needs and requirements.

Warehouse Management Software

As the name suggests, warehouse management software encompasses a large part of your logistics operation, from tracking products from your suppliers, its storage and user interaction to its final destination. This process is accurately and closely monitored by a barcode scanning system that can identify products and receipts that need to be logged and eventually tracked from the warehouse management system itself.

If your business is involved with the delivery stage of the product, consider an automated service where the delivery route is planned according to multiple delivery points in any given delivery service. This will typically be implemented when goods are picked for delivery, a real time saver since loading personnel will first of all be able to choose the correct stock that will be selected on a certain day and then locate the stock according to its inventoried state.

As you can see, it's a highly integrated approach that relies on correct user input and reliable software that will bridge each stage of development. Of course, this centrally managed warehouse system is even more valuable when you have multiple warehouses. As a result, web-based warehouse software is a much more attractive option in that different warehouses can store and retrieve information based on real-time inventory information - especially effective when you can synchronise data with existing products, such as Sage or QuickBooks.

Inventory Management Software

Where warehouse management is (usually) a seamless mesh of integration, an asset management system controls just one aspect of logistics - the assets (and inventory) of your business. A barcode scanner will usually be the interface of choice for most companies, although this is set to change with the advent of RFID tagging. Either way, stock or assets are managed through a central system much like warehouse management software and can be tracked at their different stages in the supply chain.

Wasp Barcode, the barcode scanning company, distinguishes assets as products which are used by the company and may need to track their assets based on who has them etc. Inventory management, on the other hand, is much more fluid in its operation since this is incoming (from suppliers) and outgoing (to customers) stock. In their line of products, then, asset tracking software is all about locating assets whereas inventory management software is basically tracking the input and output of stock in a business.

Despite this distinction in product type, if you need to track stock accurately (probably a requirement of most successful businesses!) and even want to update your customers with current stock levels (common in the case of e-commerce), then inventory management software is really the only way to go to ensure quality and efficient stock taking.

Which One?

When it comes to choosing, the most obvious difference in the two types of stock management is scalability. If your company is involved with picking stock from a supplier, storing in a large facility, selling to customers and delivering the goods, then warehouse management software is certainly a wise choice. On the other hand, small businesses might choose asset management software in conjunction with barcode scanners to maximise their stock management accuracy, ultimately reducing the time and cost for unnecessary deliveries and customer dissatisfaction.