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Inventory Control System

What is an inventory control system? First we have to know what is an inventory. Inventory is basically a list of items, most of the time referred to products. For an example, a hardware store has an inventory of a large varieties of things such as steel items, nuts, bolts, pipes, power tools, etc. In a computer shop, their inventory could be monitors, rams, cpu, keybords, mouse, printers, etc.

To maintain a proper inventory, you need to categorized them. Lets get the computer shop example. They have monitors of different manufacturers and sizes. Monitors can be categorized according to the manufacturer, screen size, and monitor type (LCD, LED, CRT). A categorized inventory is very important to manage your stock properly.

The main objective of having an inventory control system is to maintain a proper stock. Almost all the reports we get out from an inventory control system is about stocks such as stock balance, stock movements, stock in and out, damaged stocks, returned stocks, etc.

Main functions of an inventory control system.
  • Manage categories
  • Manage products / items
  • Add stocks
  • Issue stocks (stock out)
  • Transfer stocks (stock out)
  • Returned stocks (stock in / out)
Main reports expecting from an inventory control system
  • Inventory details (product / item list)
  • Stock balance of a given date - there should be a filter to select different options such as category, supplier, etc.
  • Stock add (stock in) report in a given date range
  • Issued stocks report in a given date range
  • Transfered stocks report of a period
  • Returned stocks report of a period
All the stock report should have a filter to select the report format according to customer's need.

Generally an inventory control system is needed anywhere which maintain an stock. It could be an office, supermarket, personal store, repairing center, hardware store, or even home.

In future articles, I will discuss how to develop a simple inventory using PHP and MySQL for home use and eventually develop a fully featured inventory control system which will even suit for a super market store.

If you need to purchase an on-line inventory control system for your office or business, please visit www.prezire.com website for more details.

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