Your New Year’s resolution? Break the inventory spreadsheet habit.

Does your inventory management process include too much time spent building and managing manual spreadsheets? Are you wasting time dealing with formula errors, hard-to-use templates, and multiple spreadsheet versions? Are you struggling with the inefficiencies and security risks that can occur with spreadsheets?

Is it time to break the inventory spreadsheet habit?

Many businesses start out using spreadsheets to manage their inventory. But as your business grows, so does the complexity of your inventory management needs. Spreadsheets often can’t keep up. More than that, there are some real costs to using spreadsheets for inventory management. Here are just a few.

Getting the data right.

Managing an inventory spreadsheet means managing large quantities of data. And one of the greatest challenges is getting accurate data into the spreadsheet. Your data can be off in ways both big and small that can result in significant costs to your company. And even when you get the right information in the right place, correctly synchronized data is a challenge, since you’re often having to extract, compile, and consolidate data from multiple disparate sources.

More spreadsheet complexity means bigger problems.

When you started out, your inventory spreadsheet was probably simple, with simple goals. But as your business grew, the spreadsheet most likely evolved into something much more complex and time consuming. Extending the functionality of your spreadsheet to accommodate more sophisticated processes adds significant complexity – and in some cases, it just can’t be done. And every time you add to the spreadsheet, you exponentially add to the risk for errors.

The risk of a “master” of the spreadsheet.

Most businesses have an all-important spreadsheet labeled “MASTER” with one owner – a single individual who builds, maintains, and validates it, including compiling and inputting source data, making changes to rules and formulas, and checking to make sure that the data fits into the defined ranges. But having a single person who understands and is responsible for the spreadsheet creates risk. What happens if the spreadsheet “master” gets sick, goes on vacation, or leaves the company? Or the increasing complexity is simply too much for one person to handle? Finding a replacement for the spreadsheet “master” increases the potential for critical errors.

An automated inventory management system like Sage Inventory Advisor can save your business both time and money by addressing these issues. And today’s cloud-based technologies mean that these solutions are available – and affordable – for companies of all sizes. Sage Inventory Advisor offers you benefits that include real-time data visibility, streamlined processes, and customized dashboards and reports that give you access to the information you need, when you need it.

If your New Year’s resolution is to break the inventory spreadsheet habit for a better approach, Sage Inventory Advisor can help. To find out more, call MicroAccounting today at 855-876-3773.