accountingsoftware

Why Inventory Management has to be Integrated With Accounting

by with No Comment Inventory SoftwareTechnology

Integrating your inventory management software with accounting can save you lots of headaches in the long-run. Learn more on how to ensure your software can scale with your growing Omni channel business.

As your business grows, so does your need for integrated inventory management and accounting systems.

Even though the fundamental goals of accounting will remain the same, relatively, day-to-day operations will become complicated. Adding locations, processing more orders and onboarding more suppliers will create more data in more places, making it more challenging to gather sales and order information and create accurate financial accounting.

Integrating your inventory software with your accounting system can record information in real time ensuring accurate inventory levels, inventory value, and sales. With this operational insight at your fingertips, brands can make data-driven strategic decisions, minimize unnecessary costs, such as labor, and successfully scale for growth.

Brands that stay with their outdated processes can face otherwise avoidable errors, incur costs and waste resources. For example, tracking your inventory in a spreadsheet and your sales in Shopify and at the POS, increases the risk of documenting inaccurate information in your general ledger.

It’s time to ditch the spreadsheets! By integrating your inventory software with your accounting system, you can:

ENSURE ACCURATE REPORTING

Having accurate annual financial reports and tax filings are extremely important for your business, investors, and ultimately, the government. And considering your inventory stock value can be a significant chunk of your declared assets, the numbers you document must be correct.

Integrating your inventory system with your accounting software can ensure every number you record is accurate—even as your business grows and your supply chain becomes more complex. With an integrated inventory and accounting system, you can mitigate costly complications, mistakes and delays.

TRACK ACCURATE GROSS PROFITS

Improving the accuracy of your financial reports can also give your business a more precise view of your bottom line. Knowing your true financial performance can help your brand make more informed strategic decisions and allocate resources efficiently.

SAVE RESOURCES

Without integrating your inventory management with your accounting system, you cannot be completely confident that your inventory value on your financial reports actually represents what you have in stock. As such, manual intervention is needed to double-check accuracy. This redundant work wastes time, energy and money.

Integrating your inventory software with accounting can save you lots of headaches in the long-run. Learn more on how to ensure your software can scale with your growing omnichannel business

Source: Cin7 blogs

supplychian

Inventory Management for Multiple Suppliers and Channels

by with No Comment Inventory SoftwareTechnology

Three ways to improve inventory management for more complex supply chains.

Inventory management complexity increases as companies expand their business, especially in the context of supply chains that span multiple markets and channels. The basic problem for companies that manage operations across various countries is a lack of standard procedures for dealing with those suppliers and sales channels.

Among the largest corporations, managing sales channels and suppliers gets dispersed across various operating units globally. Managers sitting in the head office struggle to keep tabs on all their activities. They have difficulty gathering accurate and up-to-date information about their suppliers. For inventory management, in particular, that lack of clarity can impede business growth.

To give you an idea of the enormity of the problem keeping up-to-date records of suppliers, let’s look at what some of the biggest supply chains entail. Walmart, for example, has a network of over 100,000 suppliers. Proctor and Gamble works with more than 75,000 suppliers. And Nike has three different distribution channels. All these companies disperse operations across different countries and a breakdown in information for any of them could amount to serious coordination problems among their operating various units. The fact is, for most large multinationals, simply tracking the exact number of suppliers they work with at any given time is trouble enough.

A huge supplier base certainly has its positives. It encourages competition that keeps prices down, for example. However, problems do arise when it comes to inventory management, from basic operational issues to tracking a supplier’s business practice to ensure products meet quality standards. If they can’t manage suppliers well or subject inventory to strict quality checks, a brand can suffer.

A good example of this was a scandal in Europe a few years back in which beef products were found to have a significant percentage of horse and pig meat. The blame shifting that followed makes for a classic case of supply chain management failure. Not a single link in the supply chain was willing to take responsibility for the mistake.

A lot of other challenges in managing a high number of vendors across different geographical locations include different work cultures and ethics, dissimilar quality standards and quality control/assurance measures, and operations being affected by political climate. However, the biggest challenge always comes down to optimizing inventory management. Let’s look at some measures such organizations can take to better manage their inventory.

SET QUALITY CONTROL STANDARDS

It may not be entirely possible to control the quality measures of your vendors, but you can set up your own strict quality standards and communicate them to your vendors. Once you receive goods in your warehouse, ensure thorough quality checks. Inform vendors in the event they deliver products that do not meet your standards, and issue warnings or impose consequences where possible. If your organization takes the responsibility of transporting inventory from the vendor’s warehouse, ensure quality checks at that location. In the case of perishable items, it would prove useful to again make your products go through quality control measures just before they are transported to the retailers or shipped to consumers.

OPTIMIZE WAREHOUSES

Whenever possible, locate warehouses where it is easy and cost-effective to receive supplies and ship products to consumers. The number of warehouses and locations depends on various factors. First, there is the region where you sell and the location of your suppliers. Another consideration is the availability of transportation and labor. (Will you manage your own warehouse or contract to a 3PL? If you manage a warehouse, will you be competing in a tight labor market? Will you operate your warehouse with limited hours or 24-hours-a-day?). Finally, your business may have some special requirements, such as facilities for cross-docking.

Having a centralized inventory management system is critical to the success of a supply chain with multiple warehouses. Visibility, availability and routing eCommerce orders to the right warehouse, for example, to get a product to a consumer quickly requires a free flow of data and inventory control. Hence, you need to have a centralized system which ensures smooth inventory flows and proper order fulfillment.

EXPLORE THE OPTIONS

Some businesses may not have the wherewithal to deal with complex supply chains and sales channels. They may prefer to use finite resources to focus on their core competencies rather than manage inventory and supplier relationships. Another reason could be that they prefer to have consolidated operations at a single location. In such cases, you could try a number of outside options. Amazon’s FBA and MCF have immensely helped a lot of businesses by taking care of this very aspect. Similarly, you can also use dropshipping options such as Shopify’s Oberlo, which helps you to find verified suppliers for your products.

These are just some pointers on how to manage inventory if you have multiple suppliers and different sales channel. In the end, every business has its own unique needs and strengths as well a unique business model. So, you need to devise your own approach to inventory management, depending on all these factors.

About the Author

Anand Srinivasan is the founder of Hubbion, a task management software solution.

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Benefits of Using Cloud Solutions Software for Small Businesses

by with No Comment Cyber SecurityTechnology

Most small business owners tend to shy away from the use of too much technology. Their immediate thought being that the scale of their business does not quantify the costs towards the investment in contemporary IT. The Cloud and its many solutions are also similarly looked at in the same light. However, technology is for everyone to use and in most cases will have a positive effect on even a smaller business. It is also imperative to have a business backed with Cloud technology if scaling and progressing is in the forefront of your ambitions. Growth and progress comes with its own challenges however with the correct technology on your side you always have a chance. Here are some major advantages of cloud computing services for smaller businesses.

 

Increases flexibility

 

Cloud-based services are ideal for businesses with growing or fluctuating bandwidth demands. If your needs increase, it’s easy to scale up your cloud capacity, drawing on the service’s remote servers. Likewise, if you need to scale down, the flexibility is baked into the service.

 

Back-up and disaster recovery is taken care of

 

Businesses of all sizes should be investing in robust disaster recovery, but for smaller businesses that lack the required capital, Cloud is now helping to buck that trend.

 

Automatic Software updates

 

Cloud computing servers are off-premise, out of sight and out of your space. Suppliers take care of them for you and roll out regular software updates so you don’t have to worry about wasting time maintaining the system yourself.

 

No large capital expenditure required

 

The greatest of all the advantages possibly, Cloud computing does not require capital stagnating investments. Cloud computing in fact cuts out the high cost of hardware. You simply pay-as-you-go and enjoy a subscription-based model that’s kind to your cash flow.

 

Facilitates a wider reach

 

When your teams can access, edit and share documents anytime, from anywhere, they’re able to do more together, and do it better. Cloud-based workflow and file sharing apps help teams make updates in real time and gives them full visibility of their collaborations. And our research tells us, collaboration increases productivity within a business some say by more than 40%.

 

Employees can work remotely

 

With cloud computing, if you’ve got an internet connection you can be at work. And with most serious cloud services offering mobile apps, you’re not restricted by which device you’ve got on hand. Businesses can offer more flexible working perks to employees so they can enjoy the work-life balance that suits them without affecting productivity.

 

Improves document and version control

 

The more employees and partners collaborate on documents, the greater the need for watertight document control. Before the cloud, workers had to send files back and forth as email attachments to be worked on by one user at a time. As even the smallest companies become more spread out geographically, the scope for complication rises. In cloud computing, all files are stored centrally and everyone has one central source. Greater visibility means improved collaboration, which ultimately means better work and a healthier bottom line.

 

Better IT security

 

Cloud computing gives you greater security because your data is stored in the cloud and you can access it no matter what happens to your machine. You can even remotely wipe data from lost laptops so it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.

 

Achieve a competitive advantage

 

Wish there was a simple step you could take to become more competitive? What about enterprise-class technology, for everyone? Moving to the cloud gives you access, and allows smaller businesses to act faster than big, established competitors.

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Potential Growth of Cyber Security in Middle East Market

by with No Comment Cyber SecurityTechnology

Cyber Security is more than just a buzz word today. For businesses with a global ambition and geography it is all about protecting its data, information and strategies from prying eyes. The days of human fronted espionage are over and now can be probably enjoyed in super spy heist themed movies. The new way to cause harm is through a simple and effective hack. Once your system is breached you are open to attacks which can transactional and intrinsic in nature. This is where cyber security plays a roll. And that is why it is one of the functions that show the most potential growth in the Middle Eastern market today.

 

The Middle East cyber security market is valued at USD 14.48 billion in 2017, expected to scale a further value of USD 34.6 billion estimated by 2023 at a staggering CAGR of 15.62%. The Middle East is moving rapidly while it adopts transformative digital technologies, thanks to the ever increasing penetration caused by the internet, an eagerness shown towards the adoption of IoT, and cloud, that helps enable economic diversification. The region witnesses a spike in the adoption of cyber security solutions especially across digital platforms to avoid what has become an increasingly complex battery of threat perceptions.

 

Network Security will hold largest market share

 

Middle Eastern society ambitiously adopts new age technology, modern online entertainment, growing digital media trends, and social media platforms. Jordan, especially, has developed into a regional tech start-up hub, due to an ICT focused education system, low start-up costs, and the business-friendly government.

 

Its growing reputation attracts international capital which helps to tap into the region’s underserved growing online market. Many other countries also recognize the potential of applying ICT to improve both their social and economic development. Kuwait, has taken steps to develop a digital economy, with the development of national-level policies for e-health and e-government. In 2013, Saudi Arabia received recognition from the World Bank, acknowledging the country’s efforts in executing business reforms, which include electronic filing and new payment systems.

 

By recognizing the sheer potential of ICT in improving economic and social development, Iran is also taking steps to develop a digital economy. This is why, with the increase in attack frequency and the size and scale and nature of the attacks, there is now a high demand for secure networks in order to cope with anything, and to avoid facing constant disruptions and downtime which can be diabolical for this nature and line of industry. Thus, various organizations in the region have adopted network security measures, in order to overcome any disturbances to their infrastructure and to keep their all-important and very precious data safe.

 

Key Developments in the Market

 
  • Cisco in August 2017 acquired Observable Networks. The idea was to diversify Cisco’s security portfolio to enable cloud security capabilities while also providing security support and compliance for applications deployed on a public cloud platform, such as Amazon Web Services (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) Azure.
  • IBM acquired Agile 3 Solutions, a San Francisco-based company November 2017. The company specialises in developing software used by C-Suite and senior executives to better visualize, understand, and manage risks associated with the protection of sensitive data. The acquisition was aimed at complementing the company’s security solutions across platforms.

In November 2017 Saudi Arabia set up a new cyber authority, which is linked to the National Cyber Security Commission. This was done specifically to protect information technology networks, systems, and data, and improve online security for organizations.

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UAE working on Cyber Security policy for cloud-based future

by with One Comment Cyber SecurityTechnology

The UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) is working on cybersecurity policy for a cloud-based future, according to Eng Abdulrahman Almarzouqi, Director of Cybersecurity, TRA.

“Everything will be moving to the cloud, and so the security of the cloud is very important,” said Almarzouqi, speaking at the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit in Dubai.

Almarzouqi said that the TRA is working on a comprehensive policy for cloud security, including for public and private use. Organisations are likely to implement their cloud strategies gradually, and Almarzouqi said private companies could classify their data and begin migrating to the cloud by moving their least critical data first. As they gain in cloud confidence, they could then move more of their data to the cloud.

Almarzouqi also confirmed that the TRA is looking at the cybersecurity aspects of other fast developing technologies including IoT, AI and Big Data. The TRA is actively working with other organisations including international bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union to ensure that its policies are in line with international standards and practices.

In terms of preventing cyberbreaches, Almarzouqi said that user awareness is a key priority. Social engineering is ‘the number-1 way’ that cybercriminals penetrate user information and assets. Awareness of the need to have multi-factor authentication and strong passwords is vital to preventing cyberattacks, according to Almarzouqi.

Middle East and North Africa (MENA) enterprise information security and risk management spending will total US$1.7 billion in 2020, an increase of 10.7% from 2019, according to a recent forecast by Gartner, Inc.

“The double-digit growth is a reflection of how organisations in MENA region are coming up to speed with their global counterparts in adopting information security and risk management solutions,” said Sam Olyaei, Research Director at Gartner. “More importantly, an evolving threat landscape and the advent of Digital Transformation is forcing local security and risk leaders to re-evaluate their spending priorities.”