Fortunly's Guide
Advertiser Disclosure

Best Inventory Management Software

Written By
Julija A.
Updated
December 01,2024
Some or all of the products/services listed on this page are from our affiliate partners from which we receive commissions. This, however, does not influence the evaluations in our reviews. Learn more by reading our Advertiser Disclosure.

Inventory management is a crucial ingredient for transparent and effective business operations. And this is where inventory management software comes in.

We’ve taken the time to compile a list of the most reliable and flexible options based on pricing, the available features, and other relevant factors. Check out our detailed reviews that are sure to help you choose wisely.

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Best Inventory Management Software of December 2024

Oracle NetSuite Inventory Management Logo

Oracle NetSuite Inventory Management

Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

  • Automated location assignment
  • Reports on item popularity and sales
  • B2B and B2C models supported
inFlow Inventory Logo

inFlow Inventory

Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

  • Real-time warehouse item tracking
  • Helps customers create B2B portal
  • Tracks manufacturing costs
Intuit QuickBooks Logo

Intuit QuickBooks

Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

  • Accounting and live bookkeeping
  • Automated workflows
  • Stock level adjustments
Zoho Inventory Logo

Zoho Inventory

Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

  • Vendor relationship management
  • Inventory audit
  • Access to an account manager
Cin7 Logo

Cin7

Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

  • One-click reordering
  • Order routing
  • Customer success manager
Quick Breakdown

Top 5 Inventory Management Software Solutions - Our Picks for 2024:

  • Oracle NetSuite Inventory Management
  • inFlow Inventory
  • Intuit QuickBooks
  • Zoho Inventory
  • Cin7

Why Your Business Needs Inventory Management Software

Before making a purchase, it's important to understand what exactly inventory management software does. The software:

  • Implements good stock rotation strategies in order to optimize the flow of physical goods   
  • Organizes materials flow, information about products, and other related data such as pricing, supplier details, etc. 
  • Creates a centralized location where all relevant materials data can be accessed anytime by authorized personnel within the organization

When it comes to staying on top of inventory, if you're not using the right inventory management software, then your business is falling behind.

According to IBM, companies who use enterprise resource planning systems report higher profits and productivity than those who don’t. When it comes to managing inventory, having good software can make all the difference in helping your company grow. While most business owners focus on securing loans or insuring their assets, they often forget the importance of robust inventory management solutions.

There are many different types of inventory management software available, from cloud-based solutions to open source packages. Some are free of charge, while others can cost thousands of dollars per month for a large enterprise.

The following are some of the most common benefits companies enjoy when they implement effective inventory management software:

Improved Customer Service

Fast stock updates and near-immediate delivery times ⁠— if customers want something right now, this can be arranged using online inventory management systems. With instant access to up-to-date stock levels, there's no chance of them being left disappointed by unavailable items during their purchase.

Streamlined Company Operations

Inventory management software can be used to automate many of the more tedious tasks typically associated with counting stock items, allowing you to spend your time growing your business.

The Ability to Respond Even Faster to Sudden Changes in Demand

It takes just a few clicks for someone using inventory management systems to alter stock levels or delivery schedules. This ensures quick responses that are essential when something suddenly goes out of fashion or is superseded by an updated version.

Easier Collaboration Between Departments

Cross-functional teams can work together towards common goals more easily, while continuous improvements can help maintain existing processes and make new ones more efficient. With streamlined internal communications, it's much easier for employees from all levels of the business to work together towards achieving common objectives.

Improved Cash Flow and More Reliable Forecasts

Inventory management software is able to provide you with all the information you need in order to make informed decisions about your company's future plans, thanks to real-time reporting and accurate stock management.

 

Detailed Reviews of Inventory Management Software Apps

Oracle NetSuite Inventory Management Review

5 stars Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

Price:
Quotation system
Free plan:
No
Barcoding:
Yes

Oracle NetSuite provides easy inventory management with its product modules that include supply chain management, order management, material requirements planning, point-of-sale transactions, and more.

Inventory and Warehouse Management

The NetSuite inventory management system tracks and traces products from a raw material supplier through to the customer using the so-called Lot and Serial tracing.

This helps reduce problems like double ordering since you can easily track where each item in your warehouse has gone.

Furthermore, this tracing system lets you devise and employ different fulfillment strategies in order to maximize efficiency and greatly reduce how much of your stock goes to waste.

Order Fulfillment

Accurate inventory management is critical for efficient sales order fulfillment. NetSuite has matching order fulfillment capabilities in addition to one of the finest inventory systems.

Merchants may use the automated location assignment function, which determines the optimum fulfillment site based on your business rules and total inventory, to minimize costs and speed up delivery. Note that you'll have complete control over how automatic location assignments are set up and adjusted for various company situations. 

On top of that, NetSuite tracks items in stock across multiple locations and allows you to send inventory between them to ensure that items are appropriately stocked.

Reporting and scalability

In-depth business analytics and advanced reporting are two features that NetSuite excels in. The software enables you to see how popular certain items and payment methods are among your customers. Real-time insight is invaluable when it comes to boosting your company's overall performance.

As far as scalability goes, NetSuite is one of the most flexible solutions out there. It caters to businesses of all sizes, from startups to small and mid-sized companies and enterprises.

Ease of Use

Oracle NetSuite's software has an intuitive user interface that allows customers to quickly access important information. It also comes with many tools that make it easier for workers across the board to manage inventory more effectively.

For example, there's a configurable workflow that allows workers to process purchase orders and other documents quickly. It also comes with custom fields that allow users to use their own data for recording business transactions.

Pricing

NetSuite has a lengthy list of business services, which includes practically every feature that could make your operations more efficient. This cloud-based software allows customers to choose which features they want and get a custom price on their monthly or yearly subscription based on those features.

For example, if you only need multichannel order management to streamline your operations, you can choose that product alone without paying for the Enterprise Resource Planning System or the other features that come with it.

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inFlow Inventory Review

4.5 stars Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

Price:
from $89/month
Free plan:
14-day free trial
Barcoding:
Yes

The inFlow inventory tracking system is a great choice for businesses of all sizes offering a freeware version and an affordable professional edition. It comes with built-in barcode support, label printers, and scales to suit your business needs.

Inventory and Warehouse Management

inFlow has all the features you need for effective inventory management, including customizable multi-user access (with different permissions), perpetual tracking without reset dates, multiple stock location support (for warehouse or retail stores), barcode scanning capabilities, and easy data export to excel.

Newly acquired stock is entered into the system with a quick barcode scan and is immediately distributed to locations and sublocations. One of the best features is the software’s ability to keep track of items by categories (warehouses) and subsets (particular areas in a warehouse). Knowing exactly where a product is situated helps speed up the process of finding and picking items, saving you time and money.

Another great aspect of this system is that it allows you to track the location and quantity of any given product (or multiple products). The software helps you see where you’re running low on stock and how to replenish it. You can set specific record points for each individual location. 

Order Fulfillment

inFlow's Online Showroom can help you set up your own B2B portal with a few simple clicks. All of the product pictures, descriptions, and details you've entered into the inFlow inventory program will be available online for your customers to see. You can also set up and customize special showrooms where you can take online orders and receive payments from US customers.

It might be tough to keep track of all the little expenditures involved in producing kits or assembling your own items. That’s why inFlow automates manufacturing by linking your bill of materials directly to your end products. You can now build new items and calculate both the cost and profit for each one. This will simplify the entire pricing process.

Reporting and scalability

inFlow offers 38 different sales, purchasing, and inventory reports that can help you get a very precise assessment of how your business is doing. These reports can be customized and bundled together. Business owners also get a great deal of flexibility in setting the frequency of the reporting.

inFlow can scale nearly infinitely when it comes to orders, customers, and products but can't really assist you in expanding to additional eCommerce storefronts like Amazon or eBay.

Ease of Use

This software is fairly easy to use. The platform is designed to have you up and running in no time. The long list of features is available with both the web-based and app versions and places real-time inventory updates at your fingertips.

This is quite a step up from inFlow’s previous iterations, where the UI looked outdated, especially with the Windows version. 

Pricing

The price for inFlow’s software ranges between $89 and $1,499 per month for an annual subscription. Paying a year in advance saves you 10%. Small companies needing a solution for inventory tracking, sales, and purchases should look at the Entrepreneur and Small Business packages.

The Entrepreneur plan, which gives two users access to the system, is available for just $89 per month. You can add team members for $29 per month per user. Alternatively, you can go for the Small Business plan, which allows for five users for $249 per month.

Those who want access to extra inventory tools like purchase order approvals, more team members, and more sales/orders per month will find that the Mid-Sized or Enterprise plans are a better fit. However, these are significantly pricier, starting at $499 and $1,499 per month, respectively.

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Intuit QuickBooks Review

4 stars Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

Price:
from $40/month
Free plan:
14-day free trial
Barcoding:
Yes

Intuit is a software company that seeks to improve the efficiency of small business owners.  QuickBooks, Intuit's flagship product, provides accounting services to help track everything from inventory to customer relations. 

Inventory and Warehouse Management

Inventory management isn’t QuickBooks’ primary focus. It’s a secondary feature that’s part of the platform's accounting function. As such, inventory management isn't available with all plans. But this doesn’t mean that it can’t help you keep track of every product you buy and sell.

In addition to tracking income, expenditures, cash flow, and invoices, QuickBooks Plus and Advanced plans include inventory monitoring and reporting.

This software comes with multi-channel tracking. This allows you to keep track of stock and item orders across all your sales channels/marketplaces, which enables you to make an accurate assessment of demand.

Items are added to inventory through barcode scanning, with the ability to edit product details like SKU codes, descriptions, weight, pictures, and so forth. Furthermore, QuickBooks lets you adjust stock levels for new products, returns, damaged items, shrinkage, or promotions, as well as see how much stock you currently have in your inventory, with its total retail value.

Order Fulfillment

With Intuit QuickBooks, you can sync inventory levels and shipment data to your channels automatically and then combine orders from your channels into a single system. You can define which location will deliver the order and use packing slips, labels, and barcode readers to process pick and pack transactions.

On top of that, QuickBooks comes with robust automation capabilities. This feature allows you to create workflows that automatically perform sales orders and order fulfillment tasks like creating shipments or adding tags, notes, and discounts.

Reporting and scalability

QuickBooks offers a variety of inventory and sales reports. You get access to both stock on hand and incoming stock reports, sales by channel reports, inventory by location reports, and many others.

You can also get customized reports, allowing you to get the right information to optimize inventory and match the demand.

Ease of Use

Intuit QuickBooks can’t really be described as easy to use. While the software does feature a visually appealing interface, mastering all the features and options takes some time.

Furthermore, since QuickBooks is primarily a bookkeeping solution, businesses may feel the software is littered with unnecessary options.

Pricing

Due to its focus on accounting, the inventory management part is reserved for the software’s pricier plans. You’ll have to subscribe to either the Plus plan ($40/month) or Advanced ($90/month).

These plans give you access to both accounting and inventory management tools, more than five users per account (Advanced), automated processes (Advanced), and a plethora of other useful features.

While Intuit QuickBooks can’t compete with solutions dedicated to inventory management and doesn’t have the same integration abilities, it’s a more affordable option, making it ideal for smaller businesses.

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Zoho Inventory Review

4.5 stars Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

Price:
$59
Free plan:
Yes
Barcoding:
Yes

Zoho's cloud-based inventory management program streamlines everything from initial setup and configuration through ongoing use and reporting. It lets you manage your inventory in real time by updating stock information, warehouse transfers, and shipments.

You can also generate instant purchase orders, automate receipts of goods into inventory, create bills of materials, and conduct advanced reporting and ROI analysis.

Inventory and Warehouse Management

​​Your inventory is accessible from a single location. You'll also have aggregate summaries of what's in stock. The stock management software provides notifications about when you need to make a purchase or place a new order for goods with your suppliers.

Furthermore, the software manages your supplier relationships, which includes keeping track of purchase orders, PO approval/rejection workflow, sending messages to suppliers, and seeing the status of outstanding POs.

When goods are received into inventory, an automated receipt entry lets you quickly update stock levels. You also receive a report that provides an inventory audit trail, which tells you how the transaction was modified.

Order Fulfillment

Automated re-ordering and manual stock adjustments will allow you to maintain your inventory at a good level while providing accurate, real-time information to your consumers.

The integrated dashboard makes it simple to monitor the status of sales orders, and there are numerous connections to enhance the fulfillment process. 

Reporting and scalability

You can utilize the data collected by Zoho Inventory to help your company grow. The FIFO accounting method, along with purchase reports, ensures that you maintain maximum stock levels at all times. Sales reports provide valuable information about your top-selling items as well as your clients’ preferred payment options.

You can find out which merchants are reliable and which aren't to avoid any losses in the future.

Zoho Inventory is a fantastic system for a small businesses, but it falls short when it comes to the needs of more demanding corporations. For example, the system is reportedly unable to accommodate Amazon's massive daily orders.

That said, the software is perfectly capable of helping you evolve from a fledgling start-up into a healthy medium-sized business.

Ease of Use

Although this software has sophisticated inventory control and sales processes, it is simple to set up and use. After entering a few personal and business details in the free signup form, you can begin using the program as soon as you confirm your email address.

Zoho has an intuitive and user-friendly interface. You can track your goods, sales, invoices, and contacts with a few clicks. Zoho Inventory has a clean and minimalist interface that is almost entirely free of confusing icons or menus. You may add, edit, delete, or search for products in seconds.

Pricing

You'll appreciate Zoho Inventory's free plan if you're just getting started with your sales and have a tight budget. It's limited to one warehouse, two users, and 50 monthly orders/shipping labels.

The four paid plans are $59, $99, $159, and $239 per month if billed annually. With the Standard plan, you can process 1,500 monthly orders online and the same number offline. It lets you create 1,500 shipping labels and tracks the same number of shipments per month.

If the number of orders you receive monthly goes up to 7,500, you’ll need to upgrade to the Professional plan.

On top of the features from the Standard supplies management software plan, the Professional plan introduces serial number and batch tracking. With the Professional plan, you’ll also manage items across five warehouses, and you’ll get five automated workflows.

The Premium plans bring the number of monthly orders to 15,000, while the Elite option comes with unlimited orders. The plans allow for 10 and 15 users, respectively, and add picklists.

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Cin7 Review

5 stars Our Rating

Fortunly's Rating: Our editorial team determines the rating based on a set of evaluation criteria developed for each product and service category.

Price:
starts at $299/month
Free plan:
No
Barcoding:
Yes

Cin7 inventory management is a great addition to any retail business, large or small. It's very intuitive and easy to use while being highly customizable. You can see what products are selling well or not via real-time reports on the dashboard and make necessary changes based on this data. If you need help with inventory management, Cin7 is about as good as it gets.

Inventory and Warehouse Management

Cin7's software also boasts a wide range of advanced features. Inventory can be managed across multiple locations, products can be re-ordered with ease via the dashboard, and you'll always know exactly what is in stock with real-time data. Cin7 has all this plus more under one roof.

You can also keep track of transactions and data for individual items. Moreover, you can include custom fields, units of measure, and price columns. If a product runs out of stock, you will be reminded to reorder. Reordering isn't completely automated, but you can make one-click purchases depending on the stock quantities.

Order Fulfillment

Cin7 allows you to conveniently manage your order fulfillment. If you have numerous locations or warehouses, you may route online purchases to the one that makes the most sense for your company strategy. 

You may even automate this procedure by creating rules that send orders to the warehouse that is closest and has the available merchandise, so customers can get their purchase as quickly as possible.

Order routing can be customized by geographic region, shipping method, inventory availability, and eCommerce code, giving you complete control over the order fulfillment process.

Reporting and scalability

Cin7's sophisticated reporting and forecasting make inventory management significantly easier. The robust inventory database generates a variety of reports, which are neatly organized in the report library.

Cin7 provides you with tools that have the ability to help you grow your business from basic sales reports (organized by product, customer, or sales rep) to purchase order cash flow projections.

Cin7’s tools give you access to API and POS integrations and B2B commerce while giving you the ability to add in more users on demand.

Ease of Use

Cin7's software isn't the most straightforward to set up and master. This is a pretty advanced system for keeping track of your inventory and sales processes that offers sophisticated and configurable reports. As a result, there is a pretty steep learning curve. 

However, the Cin7 staff goes above and beyond to assist you in overcoming any issues you may encounter. You'll be assigned a personal account manager who will guide you through the program and help you customize it to your specific business needs.

Pricing

Until recently, Cin7 didn’t disclose its prices publicly, and you had to get in touch with the sales department in order to get a quote. But those days are gone, and you can now examine the four pricing plans:

  • Small Business - starting at $299/month
  • Business - starting at $539/month
  • Advanced - starting at $999/month
  • Enterprise - contact sales team for a quote

These plans mainly differ in scale. The most affordable option allows two users, while the Advanced option allows eight. With the Enterprise plan, the number of users is customizable. Pricier plans also add warehouse management, online learning courses, developer API integrations, and access to a Customer Success Manager.

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FAQ

What is the best way to keep track of inventory?

+

While you can keep track of inventory in practically every program that allows textual input, you’ll quickly lose track of stock unless you switch to a dedicated inventory management solution.

Can you do inventory management in Excel?

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Excel represents a budget alternative to paying for a full-blown inventory tool. While Excel is definitely useful, especially while your business is still taking its baby steps, you’ll quickly outgrow its abilities.