Custom Inventory Management Software
Capabilities, Benefits, Costs
Since 2012, ScienceSoft has been designing and building state-of-the-art inventory solutions that help companies automate and optimize their unique inventory operations and facilitate inventory planning and control.
Head of Enterprise Application Development, ScienceSoft
Digital Supply Chain Consultant, ScienceSoft
Inventory Software in a Nutshell
Inventory software helps businesses better align inventory levels with demand, optimize inventory carrying costs, and mitigate internal and external inventory-related risks.
Custom inventory software automates specific inventory planning, purchasing, selling, and tracking workflows. Custom solutions employ IoT to provide real-time visibility into multi-echelon inventory levels and can feature AI-supported prescriptive analytics for inventory optimization.
Drawing from ScienceSoft's real-life project examples, technology-driven automation and industry-specific inventory features that custom software provides can bring an ROI of 120–190% with a full investment payoff in 5–8 months.
Custom Inventory Management Software: Key Features
Inventory software development helps create a solution with unique functionality to serve specific inventory planning, purchasing, and control needs. Below, we have summarized fundamental inventory management software features based on ScienceSoft’s experience with custom inventory software projects.
- Inventory tracking and real-time updates (based on barcode or RFID scanning).
- Automatic reorder points calculation.
- Bill of Materials (BOM) creation and management (for discrete manufacturing).
- Inventory transfer request management (for multi-location optimization of inventory levels).
- Inventory valuation (based on FIFO, LIFO, or other methods).
Item management
- Inventory items cataloging.
- Inventory kitting (for retail & wholesale industry).
- Filtered item search (by SKU name and description, expiration date, etc.).
Supplier and purchase order management
- Rule-based supplier assignment to purchase orders.
- Purchase order creation and approval, status tracking, history overview.
- Automatic inventory replenishment orders (triggered by reorder points).
Customer order management
- Sales order creation and status tracking.
- Automated invoice generation and approval.
- Automated package slips generation.
- User permission configuration.
- User activity logs.
- Automated and manual inventory data upload.
- Bulk inventory data processing (e.g., data import/export).
- Inventory data backup, versioning, and recovery.
Analytics and reporting
- AI-based inventory optimization (calculating optimal inventory levels based on multiple factors, from sales data to weather conditions).
- Demand forecasting.
- Lead time forecasting (using historical data to predict lead times by items and calculating an optimal safety stock based on it).
- Automated generation of inventory reports:
- On-hand/low-stock inventory report.
- Inventory turnover report.
- Days sales of inventory (DSI) report.
- Inventory discrepancy report.
- Average days to sell report.
- Aged inventory reports.
- Alerts configuration (e.g., for low-level inventory, shipment delays, prompts for cycle counting).
Full Visibility into Inventory Processes with Inventory Management Software
Important Integrations for Inventory Management Software
ScienceSoft recommends integrating inventory software with other enterprise systems to boost company-wide operational efficiency (no manual data entry efforts, immediate information delivery), avoid errors (e.g., accounting discrepancies, lost orders) and functionality duplication.
Common integrations for inventory software include:
- Inventory management software + ERP (core integration, which connects inventory software with other function-specific software listed further): automated transfer of inventory data to ERP in real-time, which gives other business departments instant and accurate visibility into inventory-related details.
- Inventory management software + accounting software: automated transfer of inventory transaction data for accurate financial statement and shareable inventory carrying costs reports.
- Inventory management software + CRM: automated transfer of stock information to sales teams for quick customer order confirmation and order details from CRM to inventory software for a streamlined sales order and invoice generation.
- Inventory management software + a supplier portal: shared data with a summary and an in-detail overview of products/materials provided by each supplier; automated transfer of supplier current capacity information to inventory software (e.g., min and max order quantity); automated order placement for timely inventory replenishment.
Factors that Drive Value of Custom Inventory Software
Below, ScienceSoft’s consultants list the important factors that help maximize ROI for customized inventory management software:
High degree of workflow automation
Automated inventory data processing, inventory ordering, and invoice document generation helps increase the productivity of your inventory teams and warehouse workers, as well as decrease human error.
AI-powered predictive analytics
Data-driven demand forecasting helps minimize both stockouts and overstocking, spot shifting customer preferences and seasonal trends, and optimize inventory processes in accordance with overall business goals.
Smooth integration with hardware
By integrating your inventory software with barcode/OR code scanners, RFID solutions, and computer vision systems, you benefit from streamlined inventory counting and obtain full visibility of real-time inventory levels.
Custom inventory management software allows introducing unique user interfaces tailored to different inventory workflows and inventory-associated roles. Intuitive design of an inventory app makes user adoption easier and drives employee productivity.
Custom Inventory Software Development: Success Stories by ScienceSoft
How Do You Start an Inventory System from Scratch?
ScienceSoft’s projects on custom inventory management software development comprise a range of core stages that ensure top-notch inventory system’s quality and smooth implementation flow.
1.
Inventory system design
We elicit functional and non-functional requirements for an inventory solution and design a clear software concept. In particular, our experts provide an optimal inventory management feature set, prototype role-specific UX and UI, design a high-performing architecture for your inventory system, and plan its integrations with the required software and hardware.
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2.
Project planning
We determine the deliverables, scope, and success measures for the project and estimate the resources (roles, timelines, investments) needed to complete it. We also prepare a risk mitigation strategy and plan to address any potential issues (operational, hardware compatibility, user adoption, and more) down the road.
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3.
Development and QA
We develop the back end of your custom inventory solution (including integration APIs), create user interfaces for the required roles, and set up secure and scalable storage for inventory data. If you opted for AI-supported inventory analytics, our data scientists design and train ML models for inventory planning and optimization. We can also help install and tune the hardware for inventory counting.
We run testing procedures in parallel with the development to fix any potential defects before production and prevent costly post-launch software changes.
4.
Integration
We integrate your inventory management software with the required solutions and perform integration testing to enable a smooth and secure connection between the systems.
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5.
Inventory data migration
We migrate inventory data from your legacy inventory software or spreadsheets and run rigorous data quality verification to ensure the accuracy and consistency of inventory records.
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6.
Deployment and pilot run
We configure inventory software infrastructure, implement robust network security mechanisms, and set the ready solution live. Before an enterprise-wide launch, we usually deploy inventory software to one of the targeted facilities or user groups for a pilot run to test the system’s functioning and quickly handle possible flaws and change requests.
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7.
Employee training
We introduce a step-by-step plan for inventory software adoption and draw user manuals, tutorials, and admin guides. Our consultants can conduct employee training in your preferred format (remote, in-person, or hybrid) to help your inventory managers and warehouse staff embrace the benefits of the new software.
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Explore our detailed guide to inventory system creation for more information on the specifics and duration of each stage.
Is Custom Inventory Software the Best Solution for Your Needs?
Answer a few simple questions and find out whether a custom inventory system is feasible for your case.
Do you need software providing specific features, e.g., inventory valuation based on custom rules, automated inventory reordering, or RFID-based stock counting?
Do you need software to support complex workflows like multi-echelon inventory management or omnichannel selling?
Do you want to leverage AI-driven insights into your inventory operations and get intelligent guidance on inventory planning and optimization?
Do you need to integrate your inventory software with multiple corporate solutions, supplier systems, or counting hardware, including legacy tools?
Do you need to manage regulated inventory (e.g., drugs, military items, regulated commodities) and report it in compliance with region-specific legal standards?
Do you need customizable inventory management software with various interfaces for different roles in the inventory management team?
Do you plan to evolve the solution with new functional and non-functional capabilities in order to adjust it to changing business requirements?
Do you have large teams involved in inventory management processes and look to avoid the software fees associated with the per-user subscription model?
Please tell us a bit more about your needs
Answer at least 3 questions to get results.
You can go with off-the-shelf inventory software
Looks like market-available inventory solutions are a viable option to meet your needs. Turn to ScienceSoft if you need help with choosing the optimal ready-made tools, their implementation, customization, or integration with your existing systems.
You definitely should consider custom development
A tailor-made inventory solution will help you reap the unique benefits that market-available software cannot offer. Turn to ScienceSoft to get the detailed assessment of a custom inventory system’s feasibility for your business situation.
Custom inventory software is your best choice
Looks like market-available inventory tools don’t fit your specific requirements and won’t be able to provide the expected operational and economic feasibility. Turn to ScienceSoft to get a consultation on custom development and receive cost and ROI estimates.
Investments and ROI: Custom Inventory Management Software
An expected payback period for custom inventory management software is 5–8 months with 120–190% of ROI.
The implemented system may bring the following financial outcomes:
- Inventory costs savings due to optimal volumes of on-hand stock and stockout costs eliminated up to 100% due to accurate demand forecasting and real-time inventory control tools.
- Revenue growth due to a higher fill rate with automated and optimized inventory operations.
How much does custom inventory management system cost?
From ScienceSoft’s experience, the cost of custom inventory management software ranges between $90,000 and $400,000, depending on the number and complexity of functional modules and required system integrations.
$90,000–$250,000
For a midsize company.
$250,000–$400,000
For a large enterprise.
Learn the Cost of Your Inventory Solution
Want to know how much your custom inventory solution will cost? Answer a few simple questions about your needs to help our experts estimate the cost quicker.
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Inventory Software Development with ScienceSoft
In custom software development since 1989, ScienceSoft is ready to design and build robust inventory solutions tuned to business specifics. Whether you need to create custom inventory database software, custom inventory counting software, or an all-in-one inventory management system, our team of 750+ IT professionals is at your service.
Consulting: custom inventory software
- Defining inventory software functionality based on business needs.
- Choosing the best-fitting tech stack.
- Preparing a project plan with estimated costs and time budget for implementing inventory software.
- Designing a secure software architecture.
- Creating UX and UI mockups reflecting inventory workflows.
Development: custom inventory software
- Inventory management software architecture design.
- UX and UI design.
- Development of custom inventory software (web and mobile).
- Integration with the required software (accounting, CRM, etc.) and hardware (e.g., an RFID system).
- Quality assurance.
- Post-implementation support and evolution.
What makes ScienceSoft different
We achieve project success no matter what
ScienceSoft does not pass mere project administration off as project management, which, unfortunately, often happens on the market. We practice real project management, achieving project success for our clients no matter what.
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is a global IT consulting and software development company headquartered in McKinney, Texas. We provide technical guidance and develop inventory management software that helps enhance employee productivity, optimize inventory levels, and reduce carrying costs. An ISO 9001- and ISO 27001-certified company, we rely on a mature quality management system and guarantee cooperation with us does not pose any risks to our clients' data security. ScienceSoft's top priority is driving inventory project success by all feasible means.