Producers generally use a number of marketing intermediaries for taking their products to market. Believe it or not it is more significant in the case of small business inventory software.

In an ideal scenario marketing intermediaries bear a variety of names such as sole selling agents, marketers, wholesalers, distributors, stockists, franchised dealers, retailers, authorized representatives, broker, commission agents and jobbers. That's why one can safely say that all intermediaries constitute the distribution channel in small business inventory software.

Distribution channels play a significant role in the successful marketing of most products, especially consumer products. More often than not distribution channels bring together the makers and the users in an efficient and economic manner. Therefore it is not practical for any manufacturer to organize a network of his own selling points and sell his products directly to consumers totally avoiding outside distribution channels. Just like mass manufacturing, mass distribution certainly needs resources in like money, materials and men.

Fact of the matter is no manufacturer can easily command these resources. Taking into account that the resources can be found, the question arises whether it would be advantageous for the manufacturer to carry out the distribution function himself and totally avoiding marketing intermediaries. Analysis have depicted that there are more disadvantages than advantages to working independently. In case if intermediaries are not there, the firm will have to make direct contacts with far too many customers. What's more marketing intermediaries minimize the number of contacts the firm has to make to sell its products.

In other words, intermediaries give a firm the vital advantage of distributional efficiency. In addition distribution channels at small business inventory software combine the products and components manufactured by different firms and offer them in an assortment that are convenient to final users. The final users, in majority of cases, prefer an assortment of items, and they do not prefer to shop at outlets that fail to provide an assortment of all the products that they require.

The success of a small business depends solely on the proper management of its resources. Recent studies indicate that most small businesses fail. A main reason for the failure is poor record keeping practices, which results in frequent occurrences of stock depletion, careless invoicing and subsequent loss of customers and business. Remember that this kind of failure can be avoided with the help of proper inventory management.

Generally speaking small business inventory software management software usually includes basic inventory management features such as serial number generation, stock level monitoring, barcode scanning, and item cost tracking. The best part about this is that it may be used to display information such as product sales history, item location, and sales tax. Through the software, one can also keep track of purchase orders, received goods and taxes paid on the goods. What's more the software can be programmed to automatically prepare purchase orders for some specific items. According to experts small business inventory software management software also handles the sales part of the business. Most importantly it keeps track of the sales price, sales quantities, customer information, invoices, goods returns, shipping cost, sales tax, and payment method. In simple terms the software can be used to produce a variety of reports such as inventory summary, customer-wise sales report, outstanding orders, detailed sales list, bill of materials and sales tax report.

Keeping these things into perspective small business inventory management software may turn out to be the best investment a small business can make. This type of software is usually inexpensive in nature and therefore not hard on the budget. Apart from that additional hardware and software required for supporting it are also available at reasonable rates. The software is normally easy to operate and maintain, and there is no need for high-end training. Though, a company wishing to purchase small business inventory management software should acquire it based on current as well as future requirements.

To analyze inventory software, it is important to take a close look at the main issues involved in managing inventory. First and foremost, there has to be correct identification of the functions performed by the inventories. Secondly, there has to be an establishment of the right relationship between inventory functions and inventory levels that decides the optimum level of inventory. Last but not the least, strategies have to be worked out to keep inventories at optimum level.

Of these, it is worth mentioning that the most important issue is defining what the optimum inventory is. In common terms, it is the level that is sufficient to meet the projected demand, but not enough to erode the projected profits. Because of this reason the firm has to determine at what inventory level it can avoid lost sales due to stock out situations. Lost sales are a good concept in inventory management from more than one angle.

There is no denying that it is quite easy for any firm to totally avoid stock out situations and the consequent risk of lost sales by maintaining a very high level of inventory incurring a heavy cost. Furthermore sound business calls for optimization of inventory levels and costs subject to the condition that the forecasted sales are realized from the relevant territory. Minimizing the inventory levels can reduce inventory costs. Obviously, it is quite important that one must assess the probability of run-out and the effect on sales and profit and offset the costs of holding the stocks against the profits accruing from holding the stocks and realizing the sales.

Since the task is normally one of offsetting the costs of holding the inventories against the benefits derived by holding the inventories, inventory management is essentially a balancing act. Remember that inventory is primarily a function of the customer service level fixed by the firm. And the customer service level in the physical distribution context on the other hand is primarily a function of the ability to meet a demand at the retail outlet level as and when the demand arise from the readily available stocks without having to generate a back order.