FEATURES TO LOOK FOR IN AN INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

 

Inventory management software is a tool that automates every aspect of inventory and warehouse management, streamlining the tasks required to effectively track inventory, manage reordering and update accounting data.

Since inventory management software is important to the daily operations of a business, it’s imperative that you select a solution that is reliable, effective and has the features you need. The following are some of the features that you need to look for:

  • Point of sale integration: An integration with your point of sale system helps retailers automatically track when a product sells, whether in a physical storefront, on an e-commerce platform or through another sales channel. When a product is scanned or checked out in an online cart, the point of sale system automatically updates the inventory management system, accounting for the sale in real time. Coupled with automated reordering, this feature allows retailers to ensure they always have a suitable amount of stock to quickly fulfill orders.
  • Inventory catalog: For retailers, it is important to be able to catalog inventory not just by the type of unit, but also by distinguishing characteristics like size, color and other distinguishing characteristics. For example, if you sell shoes, you should be able to specify shoes down to the specific type.
  • Automated reordering: When your inventory level is getting low, it’s important to order more with enough lead time to avoid running out, especially for your bestselling items. Many inventory management systems offer automated reordering; simply set your minimum quantities for each item and, when that number is reached, the system will automatically generate a purchase order to send to your supplier to refresh your stock level. Smart inventory management systems can also automatically optimize your reordering points and reordering quantities per item based on historical sales data to keep your inventory level at ideal quantities.
  • E-commerce integrations: Most retailers now sell across every sales channel – physical storefronts, e-commerce websites, online marketplaces like Amazon and more. It is critical for your inventory software to track sales on all channels so you don’t accidentally try to fulfill more orders than you have stock. Integrations with your e-commerce channels will help ensure you don’t run into this problem.
  • Product cost analysis: Product cost analysis tools not only track your raw materials and finished goods, reordering the necessary components when they hit minimum levels, it also helps predict your labor costs and operating costs, such as machinery acquisition and maintenance expenses. Look for an inventory management system that can generate a bill of materials that includes a description of all these costs
  • Forecasting:  Forecasting is the process of analyzing historical production and sales data to predict what future order management needs will look like. A forecasting tool can help improve the accuracy of this process. Software with a forecasting feature will analyze your data to determine optimal reordering points, hiring recommendations, and even shift schedules required to meet your targets and continue growing.
  • E-commerce integrations: E-commerce used to be only for retail, but today more manufacturers are selling directly to consumers. Finding an inventory software with e-commerce integration is also important for manufacturers, even if they don’t currently sell directly to consumers online, because they could use it streamline sales to their retail clients, or they could even expand to include an additional sales channel in the future.
  • Barcoding: Barcoding is the feature that warehouse management systems use to track the inflow and outflow of products in storage facilities. Workers can scan items in as they’re received, scan them when they’re moved to a specific aisle and bin, and then scan them again when they’re out for shipment – automatically tracking all movements.
  • Inventory management integration: While warehouse management is a subset of a wider inventory management strategy, the two are closely related and should be integrated. Look for a warehouse inventory management system that is seamlessly integrated with your larger inventory management software – most vendors offer this option.

Inventory management is key for any business that maintains stock of goods or raw materials on hand. While inventory management has  historically been a manual process, Robisearch Limited has eliminated the need for a labor-intensive and error-prone manual inventory management system. The Robisearch Point of sale has inventory management software that helps streamline the process, reduce errors and help businesses optimize the way they maintain and order the products they sell. Reach us on 0716413386 or 0780566987  for more information or any inquiries.

 

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BENEFITS OF THE DIGITAL FEEDBACK PLATFORM TO THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

 

The most successful small business owners and managers are always looking for new ways to improve customer service. One simple way to provide excellent service is to ask customers directly how their experience can be improved. A suggestion box is a powerful tool for gathering customer feedback. If you’re a manager or owner in the hospitality industry looking for way to improve the customer service offered by your business, consider implementing the Robisearch digital feedback platform.

  • Small service problems will be brought to your attention, preventing them from becoming recurring issues.
  • You will develop trust in your brand. Customers appreciate seeing their feedback implemented.
  • Valuing customers’ suggestions will create a guest-first culture among your staff.
  • Personal attention to their needs will turn at-risk customers into brand advocates.
  • Taking time to attend to each clients concern turns new guests into loyal regulars thus growing your business.
  • By responding to the feedback from clients, you are completing the communication loop.
  • You will also be able to receive immediate actionable data that will help you improve and grow the business.

Robisearch digital feedback platform gives you the power to respond in real time, completing the feedback loop and dramatically improving all the benefits of the system. Its user-friendly interface encourages guests of all ages to give you personal, honest feedback. If you’re looking for the best way to reach your patrons online, reach out to us on 0716413386 or 0780655987.

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Advantages of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing typically refers to marketing campaigns that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. It can take many forms, including online videos, search engine marketing, paid social ads and social media posts.

Digital marketing is important because it connects a business with its customers when they are online, & is effective in all industries. It connects businesses with ideal customers when they are on Google through SEO & PPC, on social media with social media marketing, & through email with email marketing.

It’s necessary you understand the benefits of digital marketing for businesses, which include:

  •  Interactivity

Digital marketing lets you communicate directly with the customers who see your content, notably through website comments, messages, reviews, and social media posts. This shows those customers that you care about what they say and think, leading them to feel respected and part of the community you’re building. It also allows you to gather invaluable information on customers’ reactions and preferences.

  • Tracking

Besides communicating with customers, digital marketing lets you track their activities. You can monitor which ads and types of content they have seen shortly before they make a purchase. This tells you which marketing methods are most effective, allowing you to refine and improve your strategy.

  •  Authority

Digital marketing makes it easy to comment on issues and controversies that relate to your product or your industry. In this way, you can establish yourself as an authority on such topics, leading readers to trust you, come back for more information, and eventually make a purchase. Digital marketing allows you to come off as the industry expert that you are and will instill trust in your business.

  • Influencer Engagement

Many of the most influential figures in modern culture promote themselves online or through social media. Digital marketing allows you to engage with these influencers and gain their respect. If you play your cards right, you can get them to endorse you, leading their followers to become customers and spread brand awareness.

  • Print Enhancement

Digital marketing lets you expand on your print marketing efforts. By writing online content that explains claims you make in your print ads, you can go into greater detail, maximizing the effectiveness of all forms of publicity and integrating your campaigns.

  •  Multimedia

Customers tend to engage more with marketing materials that combine multiple types of content, including photos, video clips, and audio. It is far easier to incorporate all these content types into digital marketing than any other type of publicity – and it is very important.

  • Expansion

Many consumers do almost all of their shopping online. Digital marketing lets you appeal to these people and thus expand the reach of your company. Between Google Shopping Ads and brand awareness campaigns, you can expand your brand recognition and boost sales.

  • Flexibility

There are many forms and uses of high quality digital marketing, including banner ads, email marketing, content marketing, and social media posts. Thus by learning how to creatively market yourself digitally, you open up a wide range of possibilities for future publicity strategies. With digital marketing, you also have the flexibility of testing and stopping poorly performing campaigns in real time.

  • Affordability

Digital marketing is considerably less expensive than other marketing methods. Specific prices vary based on what you’re doing but ad spend tends to be lower than other forms of marketing.

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BUDGET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN KENYA

 

Most individuals and businesses have funds and resources that they would like use, spend or save, for a variety of reasons. Everybody has the freedom to do so. However, most of us end up wasting funds unknowingly and later on end up with little to no money. This mostly happens because we spent more money than they could make and probably did not keep track of the spending. Therefore, some people decided to come up with a plan that would help them know how they are going to spend their money. This spending plan is what is
known as a budget.
Budgeting is the process of creating a plan to spend your money. Most people do it manually using a bit of math here and there. It works only if one did it correctly and followed strictly. However, trying to account for large sums of money needed and resources available manually became tedious and time consuming. A lot of people would encounter budgeting errors due to miscalculation. This is where a Budget Management System comes in.

money spelled out in blocks

The Budget Management system helps you to plan for your expenses, allocate funds, and budget for other expenditures, then compare them later to see which exceeded and which matched well for the planning of the next budget. This system is very common and we use in various sectors in Kenya, from SMEs, large corporations and even all the way to the National government. Budgeting involves  four major processes, as shown below.

Major Processes involved in Budgeting

  1. Budget Preparation
  2.  Budget Authorization
  3.  Budget Execution
  4.  Budget Accountability

The processes involved in budgeting tend to overlap each other during implementation process.

TYPES OF BUDGETING

Basic Budget – its main purpose is to help map out simple expenses and income. A basic budget can be created in a spreadsheet or using a template and it is great and useful for home and business planning. They are usually easy to use and flexible, as most people use it with ease. It is very useful when you need to map out simple accounting information like personal or business expenses.

Master budget – The purpose of the master budget is to include smaller operation budgets and provide a larger picture of individual income and expenses. It gives a generalized picture of expenses as a whole. A business can utilize a master budget to plan for general expenses and identify expenses at a glance.

Short-term budget – this type of a budget aids enterprises or individuals plan for short term expenses and manage funds in a shorter time span (anywhere from a week to a few months). It provides a more focused look into short-term expenses, income sources and budgeting goals. They are great for clearing short-term debt too.

Fixed Budget – This type of budget controls when income and expenses aren’t expected to change in the short-run. It is very useful in providing a simple picture of fixed income and expenses. It can be used for everyday income and expense tracking especially when you are not expecting any change in either.

Flexible Budget -for planning different levels of activity in incomes or expenses in the short-term or long-term. It offers more flexibility to the budgeting process, planning for varying activity levels in the company’s picture.

It is generally used when one is expecting different volumes for incomes and expenses.

Labour budget – tracking the cost of labour in relation to revenue. It is part of the master budget that focuses only on labour for a more specific view of an individual expense. It is therefore used to track general labour costs or plan for upcoming reductions or increases in labour needs.

Cash Budget – this type of budget is used to plan for cash flow (inflow and outflow) for a specific period of time, usually in the short term. It focuses mainly on cash inflows and outflows for a more specific financial picture. Recommended for use when you are expecting a larger volume in cash flow.

Operational Budget – also known as a functional budget. It applies to one specific operation of a business is part of the master budget. The advantage is that it only applies to a specific department, operation or function of a business, instead of the business as a whole.

It is considered only a good option for when you are overhauling a specific department or operation of a business.

Performance budget – it is designed to analyze the performance or aspect of a business and determine whether the cost is worth the output and result. It focuses on a specific aspect of a business and helps determine if the input is worth the Return of Investments (ROI).

Can be used to identify costly methods of production and determine if certain functions and operations are creating a ROI.

Static budget – Used to account for astatic expenses that won’t change. Allow for a focused look at fixed expenses that remain constant despite fluctuations in sales volume and revenue.

 

Function of a Budget Management System for Businesses.

The Budget management System helps you set up and manage budgets for your business. It becomes very easy to understand how it works once you understand the kind of budget that will help you achieve the goals that you have set.

Furthermore, it also helps you view budgets and even generate a proper budgeting report. With such reports, you can also track budget performance against your actuals using the Profit & Loss Report feature.

Finally, a proper budgeting and accounting system can help you control and reconcile money between your business bank accounts.

At Robisearch Ltd, this feature is integrated in most of our systems as a module. It generally even makes work easier for those in charge of accounting and finance.

Robisearch Ltd offers the best digital solutions for businesses; SMEs to large corporate businesses.

Contact Us Now!!!

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Advantages of Biometric systems

Brief History of Biometrics


There has been a huge shift & transformation in the kind of authentication methods currently being used in the market internationally. From the old traditional method of using signatures, stamps, word of mouth or even signature knocks. Believe me, this is how people would verify themselves a while ago before technology evolved to what it is now. It deemed to not be so secure and could be easily replicated or faked by other individuals for whatever reason, especially for ulterior motives.

Then came the use of PINs and Passwords after electronic devices came up and evolved from the traditional outdated means of communication and verification. This method should be familiar to you since we have encountered it one way or the other. Be it by pressing special set of numbers at the ATM machine so as to withdraw some cash (PIN), or by typing a special set of characters so as to access your email account or any other online account(Password).

The rules for using the latter had to be tightened to avoid using generic words as passwords, since one could easily figure it out. Despite the rules & instructions being tightened to help reduce weaknesses & vulnerabilities, hackers still find a way to gain access to our passwords, hence causing a data breach. Such incidences still proved this methods to not be failproof & fool-proof. This is where the emergence of Biometric Authentication as an idea, that later became one of the best tech inventions, came up.

Biometric Authentication methods relies on the use of unique physical traits on individuals eg; fingerprint, iris pattern, facial characteristics, making it such an accurate technique for authenticating its end-users. This is why a lot of smartphones and companies use biometrics for security purposes. In this post, I’ll tell you a little bit more about the importance & advantages of Biometric systems.


White Fingerprint

 

Advantages of Biometrics


  • High Security & Increased Assurance

Biometrics provide higher levels of security & increased levels of assurance to the users and parties involved, since the method of verifying each individual is a real, tangible & unique trait that the user has. The other methods of verification like user passwords and PINs have most often been compromised due to a data breach. Such occurrences cause billions of accounts and sensitive data & information to be accessed by fraudsters and hackers.

Using biometric authentication methods into the process adds an extra impenetrable block for hackers and fraudsters  that only the real user can navigate through. It might be easy for anyone to figure out the common denominator used across somebody’s passwords eg your mother’s maiden name, pet’s name or even your favourite child’s birthday. However, it is impossible to use someone else’s fingerprint or iris pattern to unlock and access an account if they cannot provide it on the spot.


  • Quick & Convenient

As much as the inner workings and internal processes of  a biometric authenticator is technical and may seem rather difficult, from a user’s perspective, it is incredibly quick and simple. Placing a finger on a fingerprint is much quicker than typing out a password that has multiple special characters. Moreover, forgetting your own biometrics is- simply put- not there.


  • Non-transferrable

Biometric authentication requires the actual user’s presence upon authorization. One can’t transfer or share a physical biometric trait digitally. The only way to use and verify your identity using a biometric authenticator is by being there physically.

Biometric Technology

 

Conclusion

Biometric authentication has been proven to be a reliable method of verification, identification and authentication. Trying to get through it is difficult and nearly impossible under most circumstances. Therefore this method of authentication is definitely safe, easy to use and I would highly recommend incorporating this method on your phones, schools, workplaces and other special places that need proper security.

At Robisearch Ltd, we offer Biometric Systems for schools, workplaces mostly for time attendance & security purposes. Would you be interested or know a friend/colleague who would? Don’t hesitate to share this article with them!

We offer free demos & training too!

Call us today at +254716413386, +254780655987

Email us: info@robisearch.com

Location: Suraj Plaza, 5th Floor, Opposite Jamhuri Highschool, Limuru Rd, Ngara, Nairobi, Kenya.

 

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