

Updated · Oct 06, 2022
Updated: October 13,2022
We analyzed more than 70 of the best inventory management software.
Our goal?
To give you the best of best on the market.
We found the top 11 inventory management solutions and reviewed them in detail.
But that’s not all!
But most importantly – our in-depth, unbiased, and data-driven reviews can guide you through the crowded market and help you pick the best one for your business.
Sortly - best for visual asset inventory and tracking.
Coming up is the step-by-step process I followed to give you our top picks.
It took countless hours of nerve-racking searches and tests fueled by industrial amounts of coffee, but here’s what I did:
And that’s how I compiled our list.
Now you get to see the winners.
Easy to use
Good for small ecommerce businesses
Great value for money
If you are looking for the best small business inventory management software, Zoho Inventory is your best bet. It offers everything you’d need and then some. It's easy to use, affordable, and most of all - it can help you manage all your inventory-related operations efficiently from one platform. On top of that, the company offers stellar support for its excellent inventory system.
You can test Zoho’s inventory management software for free for 14 days.
Zoho Inventory is mostly a small and mid-sized business inventory management solution. It offers offline and online sales and multi-channel sales integrations.
One of the coolest things about Zoho, which distinguishes it from other inventory systems, is that users can suggest improvements to the software. Once there are enough customer votes for a feature, the company’s developers start working on it.
Zoho Inventory offers an intuitive and easy to use UI. You manage your products, sales, invoices, and contacts with a few clicks.
Zoho is a cloud-based inventory management platform, so you aren’t limited to on-premise software. Additionally, you can download Zoho Inventory for Android and iOS devices.
The first thing you’ll notice about Zoho Inventory is the clean, yet appealing dashboard. Everything is neat, and it displays the most valuable information, like your top-selling items and sales activity.
Being a cloud-based inventory system, it allows you to control your inventory and sales from a centralized platform, which is accessible from any computer with an internet connection.
Also, this warehouse management system is extremely easy to use. Furthermore, you can fully customize users’ access to the system.
Inventory management is easy, the software allows kitting, and you can automate the reorder process.
Zoho Inventory helps you through order management and fulfillment – you can pack, send, and track your products via the platform. Also, you can create in-house shipping labels, easily manage orders, and transfer products between multiple warehouses.
Additionally, you can sync barcode scanners to Zoho Inventory, which saves a lot of time.
All in all, Zoho offers top-notch warehouse inventory management software.
You can track your products by assigning serial and batch numbers to them. Zoho Inventory allows its users to follow the entire product history, from orders to sales.
Besides, you can track expiry dates and trace each item back to its batch. That way, you can efficiently track a product’s shelf life and easily handle warranty claims and product recalls.
Furthermore, you get an email notification if any of your items are running out of stock.
Since Zoho Inventory is designed to be a small business inventory software, you won’t get the most detailed reports compared to other platforms on this list. Still, you can see your sales, FIFO tracking, stock summary, and inventory details.
Additionally, you can generate sales reports based on customer, item, or salesperson.
In a nutshell, you can see an overview of all your operations – sales, orders, and payments.
Zoho Inventory as a standalone module, doesn’t have a forecasting report.
Still, you could use Zoho Analytics or sync your account with Zoho CRM to be able to predict future orders and sales.
Zoho has a rich portfolio of products, including accounting and CRM systems, which integrate seamlessly with its inventory management app.
Overall, this small business inventory software offers a complete package of integrations, so you could run your entire inventory, sales, and orders operations from a single platform.
And even if you use QuickBooks for accounting, you don’t have to transfer your accounts into Zoho Books. You can easily sync QB with Zoho Inventory.
Zoho offers 24/5 email and phone support. Additionally, there are webinars every week. Although there isn’t a live chat option, the emails I sent got their answers within a couple of hours.
Each response was adequate, well-explained, and supported by screenshots and step-by-step solutions. In a nutshell, Zoho’s inventory tracking software offers one of the best support teams on this list. The overall opinion of other customers is similar, judging by their reviews.
Zoho Inventory offers four pricing tiers. You get a discount if you purchase a plan for a year instead of month-to-month payments.
All in all, Zoho Inventory is a cheap inventory management software, that’s affordable for smaller companies.
If you need additional information, we've reviewed also reviewed the software in detail.
All in one solution
Custom reports
Customizable records, fields, and forms
NetSuite is a robust cloud-based ERP platform, which allows you to manage your entire business from a centralized system. It offers numerous customization options, a powerful reporting module, and workflow automation. With NetSuite, you gain full traceability of your products’ lifecycle. There's also an excellent manufacturing module. On top of that, you can use this powerful software to manage your finances, customer relations, and much more.
No. You can get a free demo after a request and consultation, which takes time due to the corporation’s structure.
NetSuite is suitable mostly for larger businesses. It’s a cloud-based platform that offers excellent inventory, sales, purchase orders, and manufacturing software, among its other ERP features.
Some of its most notable clients are Xerox, Siemens, and Fujitsu. According to the company, 20% of the Fortune 100 companies use NetSuite.
Although NetSuite offers a top-notch inventory management tool, its usage is not a walk in the park. The software is bulky, not that intuitive, and hard to use. The majority of their training videos are so monotonous that I could play them to my kids at bedtime.
That said, to take advantage of the software’s full potential, you’ll need training from the NetSuite staff.
And that doesn’t come free.
The first thing you’ll notice about NetSuite’s inventory management solution is that it has a fully customizable dashboard. In general, you’ll see such customization features all over NetSuite, which is only one of the factors that make it one of our top picks.
It’s a cloud-based inventory management system. There isn’t an on-premise version, but NetSuite offers mobile apps both for Android and iOS.
Although it’s great to operate your entire business from the cloud, there is one big drawback – outages. And according to other NetSuite users, they can’t manage any of their business operations during that time.
Despite that, NetSuite offers a great inventory control software, which is one of the best out there. Additionally, you get a rich contact management module where you can add all the information you need. If something’s missing, you can add custom fields to fill in the blanks.
In a nutshell, NetSuite offers everything your business could need – from complete inventory management to sales, payroll, finances, and more.
NetSuite allows you to keep track of all vendors, which is an essential feature for companies receiving products from different places.
It’s one of the best warehouse inventory management software and does a great job of tracking your stock. You can even do so by location if you have multiple warehouses. The system allows you to categorize products depending on their transactions or value.
With NetSuite, you gain full traceability of your products’ lifecycle. You can track lots or serial numbers and break them down quickly to see all transactions.
Not only does NetSuite offer a mind-blowing number of reports, but it also lets you customize and build your own. That’s one of the features that distinguishes NetSuite from other inventory programs. Also, the software offers country-specific tax reports, which is especially helpful for international businesses.
With NetSuite, you can forecast your sales for any number of months. Additionally, you can predict your revenue by customer.
Furthermore, NetSuite’s Planning and Budgeting Predictive Planning allows you to generate reports based on sales history compared to industry-standard statistical models.
All in all, your enterprise resource planning will be a breeze with NetSuite.
You can integrate NetSuite with most services to improve your workflow from a centralized system.
NetSuite’s app store offers hundreds of apps that can boost the software’s superpowers.
There you can find integrations for Amazon, eBay, WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, Walmart, ShipStation, DHL, SalesForce, and whatever else your business may need.
Netsuite offers two tiers of support – basic and premium.
And you’ve guessed right – you have to pay for the premium one. As a matter of fact, NetSuite used to charge its clients for all kinds of technical support a few years ago.
The main difference between the two plans is that the premium one offers 24/7 support.
Anyways, basic support is good but slow. If you stumble upon an issue, it will take some time to get it fixed.
Just like the platform itself, the price is also in the clouds.
The base license for NetSuite Limited Edition starts at $999 per month with an additional $99 per user, monthly. And there’s an initial payment for setup.
That said, although Netsuite is an excellent online inventory and warehouse management system, its price can force some users to search for a cheaper alternative.
Total warehouse control
Custom workflows via API
Production planner
If you’re a manufacturer looking to optimize your inventory management, Katana offers web-based production management software. With it, you will be able to manage all your business operations from one dashboard. You can track supplies and stock, update inventory in real-time, and automate transactions.
You can test any of the Katana plans for 14-days with the free inventory management trial. Initially, it will nudge you to try the Pro one. That way you can see which features are for you.
The trial does not require a credit card, so there is no risk of getting a bill. Good move, Katana!
Katana is built with two types of manufacturers in mind. On one hand, those who make products to order without a vast inventory. On the other are those who produce in bulk and carry a product inventory.
The inventory system provides a straightforward dashboard, and you can watch demos to get some insight before signing up. As soon as you log in you get the sell screen, which lists all orders while giving an overview of their statuses.
You can track orders easily. You will know which materials you’re low on. Furthermore, you can see when your manufacturing process status and when you can fulfill sales. The color coding allows you to take all this in at a glance.
Katana lays everything out with self-explanatory links at the top of the page. Next to the sales orders, you’ll find ‘Make’, which is where you manage your production schedule. You can use a drag-and-drop function to prioritize what to produce first. The ‘Buy’ screen shows all open purchase orders, while ‘Stock’ is your inventory page. ‘Items’ is where you define the items you are making. There is also a contacts page with vendor and customer profiles.
Inventory sales orders can come in automatically via an ecommerce integration like Shopify. You can also easily add orders manually by hitting the red plus icon and filling out the necessary fields.
When you add an order, it will show you if the finished product is available. If it isn’t, you can hit the Make to order button to get the purchase order and production process going.
It links all your manufacturing orders that you make to order to the corresponding sales order. It does not link Make to stock orders to sales.
The ‘Make’ page allows you to track the availability of materials and make purchase orders in time to prevent running out of stock.
You can manage your production process in detail by selecting step-by-step operations for each product while assigning tasks to your team.
Furthermore, it lets you make purchase orders which display on the ‘Buy’ page. When materials arrive, simply click Received and it adds them to your raw materials inventory.
The stock screen displays all items in your inventory. This includes how much of a product you’ve warehoused, the quantity you expect for manufacturing going forward, and the amount already committed to sales.
You can add a name, category, variants, SKU codes, price, default supplier, and more. It lets you easily sort, add, and edit items. There’s also a simple tab to switch between products and raw materials.
The ‘Contacts’ CRM tool is where you manage your list of customers and vendors. It pulls this info via ecommerce integrations, or you can add it manually.
If you’re looking for a top inventory app, Katana’s Shop Floor app is up there. This links your production team to the system by mobile, allowing them to view and update tasks. So, the production schedule will be running smoothly. You can keep everything paperless and even perform barcode scanning.
Its inventory tracking software works in real-time, from stock levels to the status of all types of orders. All the tasks on the manufacturing floor are tracked too. Using the app, you can also see how much time a process takes.
Batch tracking allows you to track batch orders from raw materials to manufacturing, and to finished goods to sales. You get full end-to-end traceability for any goods. This is particularly useful for industries such as food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and electronics, where you need a high level of quality assurance.
Katana offers a full range of data, including inventory, cost, sales, and production reports. This lets you make wise decisions from live data, keep inventory at the right levels, prioritize production, and make the manufacturing floor more efficient.
There isn’t an advanced forecasting module as you find with other inventory programs. You’ll have to do most of this manually based on reporting and tracking. However, you can automatically make cost calculations based on your bill of materials and operations.
Katana has many integrations, including:
There is enough here to completely manage your business.
The Support agents of Katana’s inventory software is with you every step of the way. It promises to get you onboard within 7-days, and it dedicates an onboarding team that is available via video chat.
You can access the support agents 24/7 via live web chat and email. There is also a vast knowledge base with multiple help pages for all its key features.
You can choose a monthly or annual billing schedule. The latter provides an overall discount. The two plans are:
You get one user and three warehouses.
You get unlimited users and warehouses, plus batch and expiry date tracking, barcode scanning, multi-currency support, and access to the Shop Floor app.
In conclusion, Katana is a formidable solution for manufacturing businesses. It offers full inventory management, warehousing with a workable inventory management app, and end-to-end tracking. You have nothing to lose with the free trial, so it’s definitely worth giving it a try.
Desktop and mobile apps
Barcode scanner
Asset tracking
Dhanush Balachandran founded Sortly in 2013. Since then, it has grown into a top inventory management software that has helped inventorize more than 15M items.
Over 10 000 businesses have used it so far. Some of the biggest names in the business world that have used it are:
It’s perfect for individuals, small businesses, and enterprises.
Industry-wise, it has numerous use cases, including:
Also, you can implement the system in your home. It can come in handy when moving or monitoring your property, especially if you have a large team of house staff.
Doing store inventory control with Sortly is as easy as ABC.
To begin with, setting it up is effortless. And you can have it up and running in minutes instead of waiting for hours/days for approval.
Plus:
It’s very intuitive, so, zero learning curve.
The dashboard is also aesthetically pleasing, yet functional.
Of course, we had to test it out to give you our expert analysis. Here was our experience.
We were able to perform various tasks, such as grouping our items, adding custom fields, and using the barcode stress-free.
Sortly is a cloud-based software allowing you to deploy it on any operating system. It also comes with desktop and mobile apps, so you can use it on the go.
What’s more?
It has an offline mode, so you don’t have to worry about internet outages.
Its interface allows you to add, remove, and update product details through custom fields. After that, you can group your items into folders for easier access.
On top of that, you can include expiry dates so the system can let you know what you need to consume first or toss out.
Even better, this inventory tracking software is barcode-powered. You just need to scan the off-the-shelf labels on your items. They will act as unique identifiers in storage.
In addition, you can set special rights and privileges to control user activity.
Tired of those chaotic inventory tracking sheets?
Here’s some good news:
Sortly will automate the entire process for you. It will help you track what you have, where your time is, or who has it.
It’s among the best software for inventory management because it lets you track your items visually. You can also search by name, date, or time.
That’s not all:
Its low-stock alerts will definitely make your life easier.
Another reason Sortly is on our list is its reporting abilities. Unfortunately, you can only export and generate the documents on the desktop app.
Speaking of exporting, you can do so via PDF, Dropbox, CSV, or Excel.
Your report options are:
The historical data that this inventory software displays will help you with demand forecasting. In addition, it sends you notifications to help you know the status of your levels.
Sortly doesn’t integrate with other software. However, it has a limited API that is still in the Beta stage. It helps manage folders and items, create alerts, and add custom fields.
Note that the API is only available to Ultra and Enterprise subscribers.
Luckily, we have plenty of inventory programs on this list that will easily link with other apps.
Although Sortly is global, its support is only available during Pacific Standard Time business hours. Depending on your time zone, you can expect a 6 -12 hours turnaround.
Although there might be slight delays here and there, Sortly’s customer service staff makes up for it big time. It’s professional yet friendly and will handle your issue to your satisfaction every time.
You can reach it through:
This small business inventory management solution offers refunds, but you have to email support to make a request. It also has four reasonably priced packages, and you can make either month-to-month or yearly payments.
Here are your options:
* This inventory management solution currently has a 50% discount offer for annual subscriptions! Note that it's only applicable to new clients only, i.e., for first-year subscriptions.
One of the most significant drawbacks of Sortly is that it doesn't have integrations.
In addition, it doesn’t have advanced sorting, which means that you won’t be able to choose what information to display first after searching.
Fortunately, it allows you to scroll through your records to find exactly what you need.
Also, it needs credit card details for the free trial, which can be tricky if you only want to take it for a test drive. It will automatically charge you once the trial period is over.
But let me let you in on a little secret:
You can cancel your trial within 14 days.
To sum up, it’s a reliable inventory software for small businesses, enterprises, and individuals. It’s super easy to use and has all the features to track and update your inventory accurately and quickly.
Easy to use
Showroom
Customer support
InFlow is a top inventory management software, suitable for businesses of all sizes. With its help, you can easily track your inventory, get alerted if low on stock, and reorder with one click. Moreover, you can manage all your items, warehouses, suppliers, and deliveries with ease, thanks to inFlow's intuitive UI. On top of that, you get a free online showroom where you can sell your products directly.
You can test inFlow’s inventory management software for free for 14 days.
InFlow is a Canadian company, founded in 2005. Its software is suited for businesses of all sizes, and it’s best for wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers, or distributors.
You can use inFlow to manage purchase orders, sales, and inventory.
The company offers a cloud-based software or an on-premise inventory management app.
Some of the inFlow’s most notable clients are NASA, Facebook, AT&T, Chicago Bulls, and Google.
Inflow’s interface is clean and straightforward on both the cloud-based and the Windows desktop versions. That makes it incredibly functional and easy to use, even for beginners.
InFlow’s inventory management system has a cloud-based version, which doesn’t offer the software’s full functionality. If you want to take advantage of all of inFlow’s features, you’ll have to use the on-premise app. And the latter is available for Windows users only.
That said, if you are looking for inventory management software for Mac, inFlow isn’t the solution.
However, if you are an Apple fan you can still download the mobile app on your iPhone. There’s an Android one, as well. Both are quite functional and can turn your smartphone into a barcode scanner, which comes in handy.
You can also adjust prices, costs, and stock levels directly from your smartphone.
Furthermore, inFlow is compatible with most barcode scanners, and it can create inhouse barcodes regardless of the plan you choose.
You can use inFlow to manage your inventory, shipping, suppliers, warehouses, and reordering.
Additionally, you can set up a virtual showroom where your customers could purchase items directly, without the need for a middleman.
Overall, it provides all the core features of a sound inventory system and then some.
With inFlow, you can keep track of all your inventory items, purchase orders, profits, and sales.
You can track your items via their serial numbers and barcodes. Additionally, you can see the location of each product, follow its movement history, and transfer stocks quickly.
inFlow does a great job of tracking inventory. It’s incredibly intuitive, and the software alerts you when some of your items are below a certain quantity. And you can reorder items with only one click.
Depending on your inFlow plan, you get 32 or 38 built-in reports. They cover all the essential data you need – like sales, customers, taxes, purchases, payments, inventory counts, product history, and so on.
Still, you can’t customize your reports, so you are stuck with whatever the software offers. If you choose the Enterprise plan (more on that in a bit), you can request custom reports.
At the time of writing, inFlow doesn’t offer a forecasting report.
Still, it does have an “Estimated Inventory Duration Report,” based on a 90-day history, which can help you plan ahead.
In terms of integrations, inFlow isn’t the best one out there. However, it still offers the essentials.
I’m usually very critical of support teams, but I have to say inFlow’s customer support is excellent.
InFlow has one of the friendliest support staff on our top 10 list. First off, all of my inquires got answered within a day. What’s more, the reps provided me with excellent assistance whenever I needed it.
A huge plus is that I found a major bug in their Android app, sent a ticket, and they fixed the app in a few hours. You can’t ask for much more. Especially if you need inventory management software for a small business, since running a smooth operation is crucial for success.
You can contact them via live chat, email, or phone.
InFlow’s inventory software offers three plans, depending on the size of your business.
The Essentials plan doesn't include user access rights, and the bill of materials and work orders come as an add-on that will cost you an additional $39/month.
If you have a bigger team you'll have to go with any of the following plans:
The Plus plan comes with a six-hour setup assistance, unlimited support, purchase order approvals, and you have 10,000 sales orders/month included in the price.
Flexibility
Good support
Lots of features and integrations
Cin7 is a robust, feature-rich inventory management system that can help you manage your stock efficiently. The numerous features and integrations make this advanced software perfect for mid-sized and big businesses. It allows you to manage your inventory, orders, sales, deliveries, and contacts from a centralized platform. On top of that, Cin7 comes with a powerful reporting module with forecasting capabilities.
You can test the best online inventory management software free of charge for 14 days. You’ll have to submit a request and talk to a sales rep first.
Cin7 is a cloud-based inventory management and POS system. It’s not suitable for small companies and startups since its focus is on businesses with at least $1 million in revenue. Besides, it’s not the easiest-to-use software, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll love it.
Anyways, Cin7 does a great job of keeping inventory, and it syncs sales and orders across physical and digital sales channels. The inventory control system can also automate many of your company’s operations, thus improving the workflow and saving time.
It’s suitable for omnichannel retailers, wholesalers, and mid-sized manufacturers.
Cin7 isn’t a simple inventory management software so it’s a bit tricky to use. Especially for new business owners without any previous experience with such systems. Don’t get me wrong – the interface is easy on the eye, and the company has done its best to simplify it.
It’s the sheer number of features and functions packed in this app that makes it complicated to use. So, you will need help from support, and you will have to read tutorials and watch videos even to start with the basics.
However, once you get the hang of it, you’ll have top-rated inventory management, tracking, and control tools at your disposal. That said, it’s worth investing your time in learning this app. That way, you’ll be able to automate and manage your inventory efficiently.
Cin7 is a cloud-based inventory, CRM, and POS solution. That means you don’t have to be in the office throughout the whole day. All you need is a computer and internet access. Unfortunately, this online inventory management software doesn’t have an on-premise version or mobile apps.
Cin7’s inventory management software allows you to track products by using serial or batch numbers and FIFO inventory control. Monitoring is effortless, thanks to Cin7’s color-based interface.
Additionally, you can track each product’s transactions and information. You can also add different units of measure, price columns, and custom fields.
Furthermore, if a product is low on stock, you’ll be kindly reminded to reorder. Reordering isn’t fully automated but allows for one-click orders based on the minimum stock quantities.
All in all, Cin7 is an excellent software system for tracking inventory levels, orders, sales, and deliveries.
And although it’s not the best CRM software out there, its customer relationship management module does a decent job of keeping track of your prospects, customers, and suppliers.
With Cin7, you have access to more than 130 reports. There are six main categories – sales, purchasing, production, maintenance, inventory, and finance.
You can easily see your bestsellers and highest-spending customers along with additional information, which allows you to target your promotions without breaking a sweat. What’s more, managing your employees’ access levels is a no-brainer.
Forecasting is one of the features where Cin7 shines.
You don’t get just one forecasting report, but three. To generate them, you’ll have to use Cin7 for at least three months so that the software could base its predictions on your usage.
Premium users can generate three different forecasting reports:
Needless to say, these forecasting reports can immensely improve your enterprise resource planning.
Cin7 can integrate with more than 450 systems. Here are just a few:
And many more.
In a nutshell – whatever third party system you need for running your business smoothly, you can sync it with your Cin7 account.
And since many people ask what is the best Amazon inventory management software – there you go. I’d recommend Cin7 in a heartbeat.
If you need help with Cin7, you can either submit a ticket or use the live chat. Premium users gain access to phone support, as well.
I have mixed feelings about Cin7’s support. Since I was “attached” to a sales rep, I got answers to all my questions alright. The thing is, these one-liner answers were helpful but not too detailed.
Naturally, I checked what other Cin7 users think about the support, and the overall impression is the company offers competent and fast customer support.
Cin7 offers three plans – Starter, Momentum, and Advanced. Each is tailored to suit the company’s individual needs, and so is the price.
The software’s price starts at a bare minimum of $299 per month with an implementation fee starting at $1500.
Cin7’s price surely doesn’t make it the ideal inventory management software for small businesses and teams. Still, a smaller company wouldn’t need such a robust and feature-rich software, to begin with.
Open-source
High flexibility
A wide array of add-ons in the Odoo app store
Odoo is one of the best open-source inventory systems out there. It does a great job of managing and tracking inventories across one or multiple warehouses. It’s packed with loads of features, and you can tailor the software to suit your needs with the thousands of apps in the Odoo app store. You can easily create a powerful all-in-one software for all your business operations, including CRM, POS, accounting, etc. With the inventory module, you can track your products' complete lifecycle, automate reorders, receive alerts, and much more. You can also see each of your item's details at a granular level, including their exact location in a warehouse.
If you want to use only the inventory module, it’s free forever for an unlimited number of users. If you need more than one module, Odoo provides a 15-days trial.
Odoo is an open-source inventory management software, founded in 2005 in the US. It comes with all the features of a complete ERP platform.
At the time of writing, Odoo provides 37 modules and hundreds of add-ons. It offers sales, manufacturing, marketing, website, and operations modules. All of them can help you build a system that will suit your business’s needs.
Once you’ve configured the software and it’s ready to use, it’s not that complicated. Still, it will take time for your employees to learn how to use it, but the configuration stage is more complex.
In a nutshell – once it’s good to go, it’s relatively straightforward.
You can use Odoo however you like – it has cloud-based, desktop, and mobile versions.
Odoo’s inventory management software is flexible and allows you to manage one or multi-warehouse inventories. You can even add warehouse details like rows and shelves.
The software also supports barcode scanning. You can scan incoming deliveries, packing orders, create shipping labels, etc.
One of Odoo’s other cool features is that you can automate the reorder process.
Odoo’s inventory control software allows you to track the complete lifecycle of your items.
You can choose which operations you want to track, and you can trace your products by barcode or serial number.
Although it’s somewhat difficult to get used to it, Odooo is an excellent barcode inventory management software, that can easily track your inventory.
Furthermore, you can add as many custom fields to your products as you like and track all of them – like expiration dates and various product measures.
Additionally, you get alerts when stocks run low, and you can easily do inventory counts.
The built-in report system is basic, but you can create your own reports with the advanced reporting engine. You can also customize your reports’ visualization – like using bars, lines, and pies.
Additionally, you can purchase reports, like the “Inventory coverage report” (about $770), which can help you with reordering recommendations, inventory age, and age breakdown. It also does a stock rotation report, which is quite handy.
This inventory system software comes with a built-in forecast report. You can use it to predict future sales, based on confirmed sales, purchase, or manufacturing orders.
There are over 20,000 apps that could improve your Odoo experience by integrating the software with different services.
The company has its own accounting, manufacturing, CRM, ecommerce, and POS modules. But if you prefer, you can use a connector to manage your accounting with QuickBooks, for example.
Otherwise, despite the overwhelming number of third-party plugins, Odoo is currently developing a native Amazon integration. At the time of writing, you can purchase the software with several built-in add-ons – like DHL, UPS, FedEx, and eBay. Each for $20-$50 a month.
On top of that, if you choose this software, you can integrate it seamlessly with the company’s DMS tool. That way, you can combine your company’s operations with document automation, which can immensely speed up all your processes. Sure, it’s not one of the best document management systems out there, but it gets the job done.
What makes Odoo one of the recommended inventory management software is that its open-source nature allows you to integrate it with any other service. If you have the technological knowledge, that is.
You can reach Odoo’s support by live chat, tickets, or phone.
Although it took them over a day to reply to each message, Odoo’s support team provided me with detailed and useful explanations. Overall I’m content with their support team.
Since you can build Odoo using whichever module you need, it could be either free (for one module) or it could reach up to more than $1,000 a month without any third-party app purchases.
However, the price depends entirely on your needs. If you need restaurant inventory management software the cost will be different from a warehouse one, for instance.
Although you can implement Odoo yourself, you can also ask for the company’s professional help by purchasing one of their Success Packs. You’ll get an Odoo project manager that will tailor your Odoo apps to suit your company’s needs. And here are the Success Packs’ prices:
Easy to use
Good for manufacturers
No forecasting
Unleashed is a powerful, yet easy-to-use inventory system software. It offers all the necessary features to manage your inventory efficiently. And when you add the production module, it becomes an excellent solution for traders and manufacturers. Overall, it’s a great inventory database software, and your employees won’t spend months learning how to use it.
Unleashed Software provides a 14-day trial, so you could test the software first-hand. You can use all the features of the Medium plan. Additionally, if you need more than 14 days of trial, you can ask for an extension.
Based in New Zealand, Unleashed launched its inventory software in 2009.
It’s a cloud-based inventory management system mostly designed for medium and large-sized businesses and manufacturers.
It provides real-time inventory, sales, and warehouse management. Unleashed offers all the necessary tools for inventory management – tracking, optimization, kitting, and BOMs. You can also use its reporting and analytics functions to keep track of your business.
Unleashed is a feature-rich software, but its features come at a price. And it’s not a low one, either.
Unleashed is among the leaders on this list when it comes to UI. It's intuitive, and even if you haven’t used such a program before, you’ll get the hang of it in no time.
Most tools on this list operate in the cloud. So does Unleashed.
Additionally, the software has a mobile app for both Android and iOS. That way you could unleash your sales reps and let them sell from anywhere. Furthermore, you can sync offline sales once you get back online.
Naturally, being one of the top inventory management software, Unleashed supports barcode scanning. You can use barcode scanners for inventory counts and create sales shipments and receipt purchase orders.
You can quickly gain access to tracking information, stock levels, sales, and costs. The software’s ease of use lets you see everything with just one click.
And the best part is, you get real-time data about your stock. You can easily keep track of your items across different warehouses regardless of location. There’s also a warehouse module, which you can use to move items between warehouses.
You can track your items by serial or batch numbers. Moreover, the software can show you the usage history of those numbers – from the moment you purchased them, all the way to sales.
Low stock alerts appear on your dashboard, so you could easily reorder and not miss any orders due to a lack of products.
The reports in Unleashed come in four categories – purchases, inventory, production, and sales. It’s a convenient and straightforward arrangement since it offers you all the information grouped in an uncomplicated manner.
You can analyze your costs, see your stock levels, reorder, back-order reports, and more. You can also customize each report by adding or removing data by simply dragging and dropping different fields.
At the time of writing, Unleashed can’t assist you with inventory predictions.
Still, its developers are creating a business intelligence module that should be available soon.
Still, Unleashed doesn’t provide native integration with eBay and WooCommerce. You could contact a third-party vendor for a connector software.
The same applies to shipping integrations. There are no native add-ons for the most popular shipping companies like DHL, UPS, FedEx, and ShipStation.
If you experience any problems with the Unleashed inventory management software, you can reach out to its support via phone, email, ticket, or live chat.
Still, the live chat option is only available if you purchase the Premium Support Package.
There are also video tutorials in the Unleashed Academy, which are quite helpful.
Anyways, I sent some tickets and received simple-written one-line answers. The first responses came within an hour, but I had to wait for two days for the last one, which was more detailed and helpful. Overall, not the best support experience.
Unleashed offers four plans: Small, Medium, Large, and Large Plus. You’ll see the prices for a monthly subscription, paid annually. For a month-to-month subscription, this inventory management software system’s price will be about 10% higher.
Here’s a quick overview of each plan:
Lots of integrations
Good for QuickBooks users
Easy to transfer products between locations
If you are looking for inventory software with vast inventory and tracking capabilities – Fishbowl might be exactly the thing for you. It's an excellent solution for mid-sized and large businesses, including manufacturers. Fishbowl is easy to use and gives you real-time information about stock levels, sales, orders, etc. You can also track your products' entire history - from the moment you ordered them, all the way to your customers' doorstep.
You can test the Fishbowl client for 14 days.
The Fishbowl inventory system is suited for manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and retailers. In other words, it’s best for small and midsized companies.
It offers excellent sales and tracking features, combined with exceptional inventory management.
The company is located in the US and has been on the market since 2001. Some of its notable clients are the US Army and Air Force, Mercedes-Benz, NASA, and General Electric.
First off – the user interface looks outdated and gives you a Windows 98 vibe.
Still, although it takes you back in time, the software is simple and relatively easy to use.
You can download and use Fishbowl on the most popular desktop operating systems – Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Their mobile app is also available on both iOS and Android devices.
Fishbowl’s inventory system lets you print barcodes and create custom labels for all your items. Additionally, you can scan a product’s barcode and move it to another location with one click.
The software also has an automatic reordering feature and shows you sales trends for each warehouse, and you can monitor your inventory stocks by warehouses.
Fishbowl comes with an automated inventory tracking system that will help you purchase what’s needed and discard products and parts that aren’t selling.
You can track all your business operations – purchases, BOMs, manufacture orders, inventory, sales, payments, shipping, and so on.
There’s also a reminder that will help you reorder whatever stock is running low.
Overall, Fishbowl is an excellent inventory tracking software, which allows you to track everything from parts purchases to final product sales.
Fishbowl provides its users with a vast array of reports. At the time of writing, there are 145+ available reports – including accounting, BOM, and customer reports.
You can see your product history, expiry dates, shipping, sales, and vendor reports.
Generally, you can get reports on every aspect of your business. Unfortunately, you have limited customization options.
Fishbowl’s inventory management software doesn’t come with a built-in forecasting report.
Still, you can purchase an add-on, priced at $495, which will assist you with inventory predictions.
In terms of integrations, Fishbowl offers almost everything you can think of.
You can also sync your account with SalesForce and Zoho CRM.
Still, the downside of each integration is its price. Most plugins cost about $2,000 each. Not exactly petty cash.
The company offers phone, email, and ticket support.
I wish I could tell you how they handle problems and how quickly their responses come.
Unfortunately, I can’t.
Why?
Because no one answered my questions in more than a week (still waiting, though).
Additionally, many Fishbowl users complain about the very same thing – no one answers the phone, and email support is basically non-existent.
Unlike other inventory management systems on this list, Fishbowl doesn’t provide any monthly or yearly plans.
You can purchase the software license key for a starting price of $4,395.
That gives you ownership of the software and one-year access to updates and support. You can renew the license each year and gain the same benefits.
Even if you don’t, you can continue using the software, but you won’t get any updates or support.
Easy to use
Suitable for startups and small businesses
Great for retailers
Vend is a great inventory system for smaller businesses. Moreover, it’s one of the best POS solutions out there. If you are looking for the best POS and inventory management software in one package, Vend is an excellent option. On top of that, this reliable system comes with an affordable price tag. The software is extremely easy to use, and even novice users are going to love its intuitive UI.
You can try Vend for free for 14 days.
Vend is a cloud-based POS and retail inventory management software designed specifically for brick and mortar stores. Additionally, the software offers omnichannel sales integrations, which you can use for both online and offline deals.
Vend enables its users to track customers and orders, manage their inventory, and use analytics tools to improve their company’s performance.
The software is easy to use, even for first-timers. Its dashboard is somewhat customizable and can show different metrics.
Vend is a cloud-based inventory management software, but if your network drops for some reason, you can continue using it. Once it’s back online, it will sync your sales.
You can also download a mobile app for iPhone and use it as a barcode scanner. The software can create, import, and print barcodes with just a few clicks.
As a bonus, you can easily create promotions, discounts, and loyalty programs. You can also set up multiple price books, each with different rules and periods.
The only thing I disliked about this retail inventory management software is that you don’t get an alert or notification when you are running low on stock. To see which items you have to reorder, you’ll have to run a low-stock report.
With Vend, it’s easy to track your stock levels and organize your products by name, type, brand, and other details. Additionally, you can view images of your products in the inventory tab, which makes it even easier to manage them.
You can also keep track of any product’s cost, taxes, and price. Also, you can customize the price based on customers, locations, or discounts. Adding and removing items from your inventory is a breeze.
Vend synchronizes your sales across all channels, so you don’t have to worry about duplicate entries. You can also track your items by location and quickly transfer products between stores and warehouses.
If Vend doesn’t suit your needs, you can improve it by integrating Unleashed or Stitch Labs.
Vend’s reports allow you to see everything in real-time on any device with internet access.
You can customize them by user, customer, product, etc. This compensates for the low quantity of available reports. In any event, Vend does cover the basics. You also get specific reports, which are perfect for retailers – like gift cards and store credit reports.
This small business inventory software doesn’t offer a forecasting module.
Still, you could integrate your Vend account with a business intelligence system like Lokad.
The latter lets you sync your Vend account with Amazon, BigCommerce, PayPal, and ShipStation.
Overall, Vend doesn’t offer many native integrations, so you’ll have to use a third-party service to sync your Vend account with other services and marketplaces. And that could make the software more expensive in the long run.
One of the great things about Vend is that with each plan, you get 24/7 phone and online support for free.
Support is relatively fast and helpful. All my questions got their answers in less than a day. According to the mind-blowing number of reviews I’ve read, the other Vend clients are also happy with the company’s support team.
This inventory management software for small businesses keeps it simple when it comes to pricing. The company offers three plans:
For large retailers, Vend offers the “Enterprise” plan, which includes a dedicated account manager and customized onboarding. Its price depends on the company’s requirements.
Good for manufacturers and enterprises
Suited for different industries
Lots of features and integrations
QuickBooks Enterprise is more than an inventory management software. It allows you to do your accounting, manage your employees, and much more. What makes QB Enterprise an excellent solution is that it offers dedicated modules for various industries. It does an excellent job of tracking inventory and picking, packing, and shipping are each done with a simple click. On top of that, the software offers valuable business insights via its powerful reporting capabilities.
You can’t download a free trial for QuickBooks Enterprise.
Still, you can test the product online via a remote desktop.
Most of you have probably heard of QuickBooks. It’s mostly-known as an accounting system with a far from excellent inventory management module.
Well, QuickBooks Enterprise takes a step forward and comes with a more sophisticated and detailed inventory management system.
Its focus, as the name suggests, is on enterprises and manufacturers in different industries.
You can choose your plan depending on your business – contractor, manufacturer, retail, non-profit, professional services, and accountant. Or you could purchase the standard edition, which includes all the non-industry specific features of the software.
If you haven’t used QuickBooks, you’ll probably find it confusing at first. It’s not the most beautiful inventory software and not the easiest one to use. So, keep in mind there will be a learning curve if you decide to buy it.
First of all, you can download this inventory system software only for Windows PCs. With a single-user license, you can install QB Enterprise on two computers, which limits your access options. Another drawback of an on-premise version is that you are in charge of security. Both physical and digital.
You can also purchase QuickBooks Enterprise with hosting, which gives you and your employees access to the system from any device anywhere, but you’ll have to pay extra for this feature.
In addition to QuickBooks Enterprise’s accounting features, you get an improved inventory management app. You can add product information, set reorder points, and add images.
Depending on your plan, you can receive the Advanced Inventory feature, which adds serial numbers, barcode scanning, and multiple warehouses. Also, the software can generate barcodes and automatically fill product fields when you scan their barcodes.
Additionally, QuickBooks Enterprise shows you all of your open sales orders on one screen, so you could manage them more comfortably.
With this inventory database software, you can quickly pinpoint and track all your inventory products. Once you learn how to use the software, that is. You can also see each product’s serial number in each bin.
Additionally, you can track items across multiple locations in real-time. You can easily import or export product data and do inventory counts.
Naturally, all your invoices, sales, and purchase orders are automatically reflected in your inventory. Picking, packing, and shipping are each done with one click, which saves you time.
QuickBooks Enterprise also allows you to add and track non-inventory and service items.
And since the software is suited for manufacturers, you can create BOMs to track the costs, and you can track assembled products better.
With this inventory control software, you can access all kinds of reports – sales by customer, product, and sales rep. You can also see inventory stock by item, valuation, assembly shortages, etc. The sheer number of reports is mind-blowing!
As a plus, you receive 10+ additional industry-specific reports depending on the plan you’ve chosen.
The QuickBooks Enterprise forecasting algorithm bases its prediction on a minimum of 180 days of sales.
With its forecasting report, you can compare YoY growth and predict the needed quantity for the next 180 days. Additionally, you can forecast your company’s finances via a custom forecast report.
Naturally, this is the best inventory management software for Quickbooks users.
The company’s app store is packed with all the necessary integrations and then some.
In a nutshell – customer support is good, but you’ll have to wait for it.
You can’t send emails or leave tickets. The only options are live chat and phone, which work Monday through Friday 4 AM-7 PM (PT).
This top inventory management software offers three different plans – Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
In case you are wondering if you should invest your hard-earned dollars into an inventory management system, the answer is yes, you should. Here’s why:
Each step of your company’s growth is hard, and it presents different challenges.
As your business grows, so do the inventory volumes. Naturally, you start using more sales channels to nurture its future growth. Additionally, you’ll have more and more contacts, including suppliers, customers, sales reps, and so on.
Keeping track of all of this manually is virtually impossible.
So, here are the benefits of using inventory management software:
That’s probably the best reason to buy such software. It will allow you to save time, which you can use to focus on your further growth. The inventory management solutions also help you save money by diminishing the human-error factor.
You will hate it if you have thousands of items gathering dust in a warehouse somewhere, right?
The same goes for the high demand for a product you are out of.
The inventory management systems can help with that.
Not only will you have an optimal amount of stock available, but you can also predict what you’ll need in the future and restock on time.
Omnichannel sales could be tricky without an inventory management solution.
Keeping track of all your sales channels and inventory levels is nearly impossible without one. Needless to say, overselling can hurt a company’s reputation. No one wants that.
With such software, you can easily track your stock levels, place purchase orders, conduct sales, manage your contacts, and arrange shipping from one place. You don’t have to sign in and out of different services – you can manage everything easily from a single software.
Now.
Coming up is a quick guide on how to choose the perfect solution for your company.
You have to choose your software wisely – after all, you’ll count on it to perform all your business operations. Additionally, it will cost you hundreds of dollars monthly (best case scenario). And finally, you’ll want to make sure you and your employees can use it.
So here’s what you should think about before you purchase one:
Clarify your needs and choose the best one to fulfill them. Otherwise, you might end up purchasing expensive software while using only half of its features.
Some inventory system software offer a fantastic bundle of features, but they are hard to use, and it takes time to implement the new system and train your staff. And in most cases, this training doesn’t come cheap. On the other hand, some inventory systems are incredibly easy to use but lack some features you may need.
Depending on your company’s location, you may stumble upon several issues.
You should have a clear idea of how much you are willing to spend on inventory management software. I can tell you from experience that the prices on the company’s websites are the bare minimum. Usually, there’s an implementation fee, some integrations can cost you thousands of dollars, and there could be many other payments you’ll have to make.
With that said, consider your budget, divide it by two and look for software that will fit into the smaller figure to ensure there aren’t any nasty surprises down the road.
As your business grows, so will your needs.
Choose scalable software that can grow hand in hand with your business. While you can always upgrade your plan to meet your growing demands, there’s a limit. If you have high ambitions for your company, choose an inventory control software that will be able to meet them later on.
Otherwise, you may have to choose another inventory management software in the future. And migrating from one system to another can cause you more problems than it can solve.
Choosing a suitable inventory management solution for your business is a tricky endeavor.
You could easily get fooled by sales reps and paid online reviews.
Finding the most suitable solution can be hard, but it’s not impossible.
Our list proves it.
They are the best of the best and will serve your business faithfully for years to come.
Thanks to our thorough analysis and careful testing, you can save time you would otherwise waste searching for your ideal solution. There’s something for every business in the above-listed programs. Whether you are a startup or an enterprise owner, you can find your inventory management tool on this list.
But don’t just take my word for it – go ahead and try some or all of them. I promise you’ll find the one that best suits your company’s needs.
Till next time!
The following are the leading inventory management software on the market:
The short answer would be – from $0 to thousands of dollars a month. The average minimum price of all our top 10 picks is $267 monthly.
If your business has outgrown pen, paper, and Excel, it’s time to move on to a professional inventory tracking software. These solutions are specifically created to ease your inventory management and automate as many operations as possible. You can easily choose the best inventory management software from our top picks.
Deyan Georgiev
Deyan has been fascinated by technology his whole life. From the first Tetris game all the way to Falcon Heavy. Working for TechJury is like a dream come true, combining both his passions – writing and technology. In his free time (which is pretty scarce, thanks to his three kids), Deyan enjoys traveling and exploring new places. Always with a few chargers and a couple of gadgets in the backpack. He makes mean dizzying Island Paradise cocktails too.
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