Inventory management is the system of keeping control of the goods available and sold along with managing stock, so it tends to be complicated and time consuming. A good inventory management is highly essential to run a pharmacy smoothly, as poor inventory management causes complexities and difficulties in managing inventory.
Underestimated inventory levels can lead to shortages that can frustrate customers and deteriorates the sales of business. In contrast, overestimate can cause the business to be less cost effective if there is surplus of unnecessary stocks that can increase inventory carrying costs. The situation may get worse when the goods are expired resulting in wastage.
In this article, we are going to share some tips to make sure that the inventory system is organized and well-managed:
1. Incorporate the perpetual inventory system
Unlike, periodic inventory system, perpetual inventory system is a system which the availability and quantity of inventory is updated continuously instead of once after a certain period of time (i.e. monthly). The most common perpetual inventory system and technology adopted is using bar code scanners.
This system speeds up the access to medications for optimizing the customers’ care, as it is able to limit the dispensation of medication. Hence, investing in a good shelving system is a wise solution, as it enables better visibility and control, so as to reduce wastage.
2. Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for receiving inventory
Proper Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for receiving inventory is crucial to inventory management. For instance, assigning the task of receiving inventory to specific employees allows accountability in inventory management.
Mistakes and time taken can be minimized when clear and systematic procedures are outlined for the routines of inventory management. To implement SOP appropriately, investing in software is one of the effective ways, as it can save manpower and reduce human error.
3. Inventory audit
An inventory audit is a good practice in every business, as it is a procedure to check whether the financial records are matched with the actual physical count of goods. Audits can help to keep track of inventory loss resulting from wastage, damage, theft, obsolescence and dormant stock.
This could help to identify any failure in the security of the pharmacy or the effectiveness of warehouse procedures, so as to improve the efficiency of the existing process accordingly. Besides, unnecessary investment on stocks can be avoided when over- or under-stocked items are revealed to maximize profit of the business.
4. Report drug usage on a regular basis
Regular reporting on inventory usage is critical especially when it comes to meditation. It allows pharmacists to monitor the quantity of drugs being used for determining the usage trend of drugs over the time.
This report can be one of the key aspects for pharmacy retail decision makers, as it could help them to make order according to demand and needs of customers. It will increase the sales of the business and reduce the wastage of capital on unnecessary goods. Eventually, loyalty of customers towards your pharmacy can be built up more effectively.
Conclusion
Due to the higher awareness on health condition of society, the number of pharmacy is increasing exponentially recently which causes this industry to be extremely competitive – which means higher efficiency in all operations takes precedence when coming to growing your business! If the tips mentioned above are practiced in your pharmacy, you will find yourselves with less money tied up in inventory and all your operations. By using an appropriate software such as TreezSoft that work restlessly towards pharmacy sector, you will be able to run your business successfully with minimal time and effort needed to monitor and manage overheads.
TreezSoft is a cloud accounting software for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). It allows you to access your financial information anytime, anywhere. It also allows you to have unlimited users for FREE for your account in TreezSoft. Our aim is to help reduce our clients' time spent on accounting mainly by using our automated processes and integration to help increase their company effeciency at a minimum costs. SMEs can use TreezSoft to keep track their expenses, accounts, daily operation e.g. Point of Sales (namely QPOS) system and etc.
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