Remember the good old days when you needed giant speakers attached to a cassette player to create a proportionately huge amount of noise? Now you can do the same thing with a device that’s tinier than a driver license: Apple’s iPod.1 Smaller is clearly better in this case. That also applies to business. Indeed, we’re going to relate this to enterprise resource planning (ERP).
It’s all about volume. When it comes to boomboxes, you could turn up the volume dial to produce more sound. On the other hand, volume can also mean amount or quantity. And that is a very inventory and production planning kind of definition. So it’s not hard at all to relate the two. In this case, it just takes a little creative thinking.
Get Just What You Need
You don’t need to buy an ERP solution that is full of expensive features you don’t need yet. In fact, all of those extra features can add up to a heavy cost. If you’re not careful, an ERP system can seriously weigh your business down. Why is that? Because most small businesses can’t really afford a full ERP software. That is why many turn to more affordable small business inventory software options, such as Fishbowl.
Why bother with the headache of stretching your finances thin? After all, you’re better off using a lean yet powerful ERP software. Instead of getting every software feature known to man, you can start with just the tools you need. These include warehouse management, barcoding, accounting, and inventory control software.
That way, you only pay for what you’ll use. As you get bigger, you have the option to add even more features, like customer relationship management (CRM), point of sale (POS), server hosting, and other professional services.
An Affordable ERP
If you’ve been searching for an affordable alternative to ERPs, Fishbowl might be perfect for you. Not only does Fishbowl offer some of the best quickbooks inventory management features on the market, but it integrates with many other business solutions. So you have access to pretty much everything an ERP inventory system does. But at a fraction of the usual cost.
For example, you can integrate Fishbowl with all of your e-commerce platforms. When you make a sale on one website, like Amazon, it will automatically update Fishbowl. And then Fishbowl will update all of your other e-commerce accounts. Thus, your available inventory quantities will always remain up to date. Soon after you make a sale, that is.
In addition, Fishbowl integrates with QuickBooks, Salesforce, and numerous shippers. Thus, when you make a sale on Amazon, it goes through Fishbowl, which then alerts all of these other business solutions you use. QuickBooks generates an invoice and updates your general ledger. Salesforce revises its inventory quantities that are available to sell. And you can compare shipping rates from a variety of shippers to get the best deal possible.
Something Entirely New
This brings us back to the iPod analogy. An iPod lets users download new apps to make it even more useful. The device itself doesn’t change, but it can contain all sorts of new tools that allows people to listen to music, be guided as they drive, listen to audiobooks, and much more. Each additional app can make it feel like a whole new product. You might even start to wonder what you ever did without it.
Likewise, a flexible ERP like Fishbowl works the same way. The same ERP solution can work for your business, whether your needs are big or small. Also, it can grow with you. You don’t have to trade it in every few years for a newer model because you can just add more features to it until it seems like a completely new system. Soon it will become an essential part of your business, saving time and money in virtually every part of your inventory and any other lean manufacturing operation or business process.
It’s time to face the music and stop using big, clunky ERPs in favor of a lean option. It is definitely your best option. Click the following link to sign up for a free online demo of Fishbowl. An expert will walk you through the software and answer your questions to help you learn more.
Sources:
- https://www.lifewire.com/history-ipod-classic-original-2000732