We have thousands of different parts that are all being inventoried pretty much entirely based off memory. This is just not viable anymore and I’m looking for a legit system to put in place. My thought is something along the lines of a barcode system to label the items and put them in a specific location.
A Google search is showing me an overwhelming amount of different sites that offer a service similar to this.
Any auto shop or small business owners here have any input? What system do you use?
Do all or most of the items have a UPC?
If you could craft the ideal custom setup for your shop, how would you enter everything? I mean on a day to day basis: part comes in, would you just want to be able to type in a number for it and enter the number in stock?
Do you currently use a POS system? How does inventory currently work when you’re writing up an order or receipt?
The cheapest thing I can think of would be to just have a spreadsheet, spend some time getting everything entered into it with a unique SKU or UPC and quantity, then as new parts come in or old ones are discovered that evaded the first round of mass entry, tack them on. Over time you’d get closer and closer to having everything tracked and stored. You can easily set up remote backup and versioning of the spreadsheet so you don’t have a single point of failure in the office computer or whatever.
Or just pick a service/software that your POS system or any other crucial system in your biz already uses for ease of integration.