You might have an overstocking problem, with a large amount of product on hand that’s not selling like you had hoped and that is now taking up valuable warehouse space. Or you may have underestimated consumer demand for a certain product and are running into out-of-stock issues, wasted warehouse space and delivery delays. These problems accumulate over time, damaging your customer experience and impacting your bottom line.

The best way to avoid mistakes like these is by creating an inventory plan.

What is inventory planning?

Inventory planning is a strategy used by businesses in the supply chain to manage the items they sell, store and carry. An effective inventory plan relies on real-time and historical sales data, customer feedback and seasonal trends.

The goal of an inventory plan is to help suppliers and retailers make data-driven decisions, so they have the right amount of stock on hand to meet consumer demand without waste or warehouse delays. A plan is successful when it leads to minimized costs from over- or under-stocking and a positive customer experience.

Retailers and suppliers depend on one another to drive the supply chain. The inventory planning process is vital for this collaboration so all parties involved can achieve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

How can inventory planning help me?

In order to benefit your business, a successful inventory plan uses sales data to give you a good sense of consumer demand. Accurate, plentiful data can provide insight into how certain products are selling, seasonal trends, what customers think about your products and more.

A plan that uses customer demand data minimizes overstocks, reduces waste and frees up cash flow. You gain the flexibility to respond to market trends instead of tying up capital in unsold products.

Your sales will increase as you reduce out-of-stocks. With an effective inventory plan, you’ll have just the right amount of stock on hand to meet customer demand. Your customers will benefit from a good purchasing experience, especially if you’re well-prepared during peak selling periods. A great customer experience leads to loyalty and increased sales.

The best inventory plans are backed by robust data. With the insight granted by comprehensive sales data, you can create a plan for your inventory that reduces costs and helps you prepare for seasonal changes. Instead of getting bogged down in solving inventory issues, you can efficiently plan for the future, limiting the impact of unexpected supply chain challenges.

Where can I learn more?

The standardized analytics and dashboards from SPS Commerce can boost your confidence in collaborating with your trading partners. Learn more and develop your own inventory plan by visiting our educational resource page.

According to the 2022 MHI Annual Report, a survey of over 1,000 supply chain and manufacturing leaders, many companies (around 74% of respondents) will be investing in inventory and network optimization tools over the next year. Businesses will also direct their funds toward cloud computing and storage, sensors and automatic identification, and predictive and prescriptive analytics.

At least 66% of respondents will spend more than $1 million over the next two years on these and other supply chain technologies. Within that group, 41% are planning to spend over $5 million and 18% say they’ll spend more than $10 million.

Where to begin?

One place to start is to eliminate common headaches from your order management process, like the errors and lost time that accompany manual data entry and processing. You may have systems in place to help with elements of your supply chain, but if those don’t communicate with each other you’re left switching between platforms, translating the data back and forth manually.

These gaps in your process present opportunities for greater efficiency. But where should you concentrate your investment? Each business is unique, and it may take some close inspection to identify your biggest opportunities for growth.

Here are some of the best areas of supply chain investment for suppliers:

Embrace an omnichannel strategy

Today’s average consumer expects to be able to purchase exactly what they want from exactly where they want, and they’re looking for a consistent experience across channels.

A good bet for suppliers would be to invest in your omnichannel strategy, including the technology that’s needed to provide a consistent customer experience. Whether that customer is a retail partner, a marketplace or the end consumer, they’re likely to return to a brand that provides a hassle-free and flexible way to place orders.

Connect, maintain and optimize your channels

Once you’ve expanded and nurtured your omnichannel portfolio, consider how best to consolidate your back-end processes. A fractured ordering process will negatively impact your business. When individual systems don’t share data, you’re left interpreting the disparate pieces of information on your own. That lack of insight into your business hampers your decision-making process and leads to missed sales opportunities.

Instead, consider investing in tools that bring all the elements of your process into one place. When your data is centralized, you gain greater visibility into each aspect of your business, allowing you to see the overall picture and strategize accordingly.

Maintain consistent item data

Accurate, comprehensive item data gives your customers the confidence they need to make a purchase in the digital aisle, without being able to see and handle the product. When product details are missing or inaccurate, retail partners and end consumers will likely turn elsewhere to get what they need.

Invest the time and resources needed to do a thorough evaluation of your item data. Where is it stored? Who manages and maintains the data? What technology is being used, and could it be improved?

Better item data leads to increased sales and stronger customer loyalty. It’s worth the effort to improve and maintain across all your channels.

Manage your inventory

Poorly managed inventory leads to lost sales, loss of reputation and lost customers. It’s hard to stay on top of changing market demands and trends while avoiding overstocks and stockouts.

You need real-time metrics and sales data to help inform your inventory decisions. If the logistics of collecting, verifying and displaying this kind of data isn’t within your wheelhouse, consider investing in a tool to help you monitor sales trends.

With applicable information about the lifecycle of your product in the market, your inventory will become more flexible and responsive. You’ll reduce the waste from overstocking and the financial loss of stockouts.

Streamline fulfillment

You’ll also want to consider your fulfillment and warehousing processes as you evaluate potential investments. How complicated is your shipping and warehousing situation? Are orders accurate and on-time?

Mistakes can be avoided through automation of your shipping processes. An automated carrier service reduces the need for manual data entry and allows you to easily select the best shipping options from a centralized location.

If you’re paying too much for warehousing or your order volume has shifted, you might benefit from moving to micro fulfillment centers. These bring the products closer to your customers for faster delivery times, but also come with some potential risks to evaluate.

All in all, making an investment to improve your fulfillment strategy can have long-term benefits.

The alternative – doing nothing

Think about the alternative option, which is to do nothing, making no changes to your current order management and fulfillment processes. What’s the potential cost involved?

If you don’t adopt an omnichannel strategy, your customers will have less access to your items, leading to lower customer satisfaction and strained partner relationships. Your overall strategy will suffer without consolidated data. Inaccurate and incomplete item data will lead customers elsewhere and you could see higher return rates. Without accurate sales data, your inventory levels will suffer, leading to an inflexible inventory and loss of profit. And longer ship times and unused warehouse space will cost you more in the long run.

Let’s not forget your most valuable resource – your employees. You want them to be satisfied and productive, but with manual data entry, little insight and time-consuming processes, employees could become dissatisfied.

Invest in expertise

As the supply chain continues to evolve, you could remain stagnant. Or you could analyze your business and invest in ways to grow and change along with your partners and customers.

Chances are, you got into business because you were passionate about your product. It’s likely that you’re not an expert in every aspect of the supply chain. The good news is that you don’t have to be!

Hand the heavy lifting of automation, order management, fulfillment and sales data tracking over to industry experts like SPS Commerce. As you invest in the expertise of reliable technologies, you can focus on innovation, growth and the priorities that matter most to you.

As part of our partnership, we’ve been a proud sponsor of IWLA’s annual conference and have enjoyed the opportunity to meet and network with others in the industry. It’s been an invaluable resource for SPS to connect directly with 3PLs on the latest trends and industry happenings.  

At a time when 3PLs are facing ever-increasing pressures, it has become more and more important to gather and share resources and tips on how to increase operational efficiency. Consumer demands for expanded channels and fulfillment methods are accelerating. Customers expect products to be readily available and to arrive as quickly as possible – sometimes within hours of purchase. These consumer expectations multiply the complexities for 3PLs, making it essential to streamline operations and build in efficiencies.  

Our partnership with IWLA gives us the industry connections we need to learn about the trends and pain points in the 3PL space. That feedback helps us determine what we can do to relieve some of the supply chain pressure through product advancements.  

“IWLA is the leader in bringing together 3PLs and the solutions that power their businesses,” says Wes Arentson, manager of logistics sales at SPS Commerce. “Bringing all these organizations together leads to great partnerships and ideas for moving the industry forward. SPS has been thrilled to be a part of that collaboration for the last 10 years and looks forward to many more!” 

SPS has now worked with over 1,000 3PLs, providing them with automation and added efficiencies to their fulfillment processes. We greatly value the opportunity our partnership with IWLA provides to better serve our logistics customers and anticipate a rich future of continued collaboration.

Learn more about our 3PL solution or contact us to learn more.  

Every business experiences growing pains. It’s vital for businesses to look inward and examine current processes and systems as they scale. What needs to change to sustain growth?  

Part of that examination should include a review of current warehousing and fulfillment strategies. As your order volume shifts or increases, you may need to pivot to accommodate the changes. For some, utilizing a micro fulfillment center could be a beneficial solution. 

What is a micro fulfillment center? 

Micro fulfillment centers (or MFCs) are small-scale storage facilities or warehouses. They’re often located in densely populated locations, close to a large number of end consumers. These have a much smaller footprint than an average warehouse and are often operated out of an existing brick-and-mortar store. 

Benefits of micro fulfillment centers 

More and more companies are seeing the potential of micro fulfillment centers. Amazon, for instance, is subleasing a lot of unused space at their distribution centers and warehouses. Signs indicate that they’re preparing to leverage MFCs to bring products closer to their customers, fulfilling orders faster and with more precision. 

The benefits of MFCs to the end consumer are simple but impactful. Faster shipping times result in higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. Packages have a smaller distance to travel, leading to reduced shipping costs. Returns, refunds and exchanges are also faster and easier with fulfillment locations in closer proximity to customers. 

Increased customer satisfaction can lead to higher sales for brands and suppliers. By providing fast, affordable shipping from an MFC, businesses negate two of the most common customer complaints – shipping that is too slow and too expensive. Positive customer experiences with fulfillment will drive sales and increase revenue. 

It can be costly to expand into huge fulfillment centers, and smaller brands or suppliers may not have the necessary budget or resources to operate or maintain fulfillment on a large scale. MFCs make it easier for these businesses to scale up operations, providing customers with excellent fulfillment without having to make an enormous investment.  

Risks and considerations 

As with any business decision, suppliers must weigh the benefits of an MFC against the risks involved. When contemplating the move to utilizing MFCs, there are a number of considerations to take into account. 

Because of the small space, usually no larger than 10,000 square feet, micro fulfillment centers are not able to store a large amount of inventory at one time, making replenishment a challenge. They typically need to be restocked every 24-48 hours to keep pace with orders. However, MFCs are often highly automated in order to increase operational efficiency, reducing associated costs. The cost of this regular transport is definitely something to consider. How does it balance with the benefits of faster fulfillment to the customer?  

You’ll also need to focus on how to allocate inventory correctly. What items will you need in which locations? With unpredictable customer demands and the limited capacity of MFCs, it could be difficult to accurately optimize your inventory. There is greater potential for stockouts and disappointed customers. 

Ease the transition to micro fulfillment 

Businesses can make the transition to an MFC easier by automating processes. It’s important to have a connected system that can accurately predict inventory needs, manage the replenishment process and handle order fulfillment. With automation of data delivery through one connection and once process, both the data and the goods are moved in tandem and with efficiency. This is a win for the supplier, MFC and end customer. 

The limited capacity of micro fulfillment centers can also be a strength. The need for constant warehouse replenishment gives suppliers the flexibility to react to changing market demands. With the greater visibility into inventory provided by a centralized order management system, brands can easily track sales trends to predict demand and respond accordingly. 

Connected systems also allow for more automation across logistics partners. For example, an order management system with the ability to connect to logistics partners would reduce the need for back-and-forth coordination by automating pack and order information. This kind of automation is also important when moving toward an omnichannel strategy, especially considering the variety of shipping and pick-up options available to consumers.  

Overall, there is less room for errors caused by manual processing, especially in an agile warehouse environment like a micro fulfillment center where the inventory fluctuates, returns are more accessible and shipping windows are shorter. 

Automation helps reduce operating and labor costs, resulting in fewer errors and faster order processing. If you determine that MFCs are right for your business, it’s well worth the time and investment to ensure you have the systems and automation in place to ensure an efficient operation. 

Here are five ways analytics can help you avoid having too much or too little inventory.

1. Understand and prioritize your top-performing items

As a supplier, it is crucial to understand and prioritize your top-performing items to prevent stockouts and meet customer needs. By analyzing sales and inventory trends, you can identify the most popular products in high demand. This information can help you make informed decisions about which products to produce more of and which products may not be worth carrying in the future. For example, let’s say you sell various clothing items and have data that a particular style of jeans is consistently one of your top sellers. You may want to prioritize this item by keeping a larger inventory on hand, and potentially even placing larger orders with this manufacturer to ensure that you always have enough stock to meet demand.

2. Analyze your weeks of supply and sell-through velocity

Closely monitoring weeks of supply and sell-through velocity can help you anticipate demand and prevent stockouts and overstocks. By tracking these metrics, you can stay informed about the movement of your products at the retail level and ensure a steady flow of product available for consumers. A high sell-through velocity indicates a product is selling quickly and may need to be restocked soon, while a low sell-through velocity suggests slower sales and a longer shelf life, which can lead to higher carrying costs and lower margins. By working closely with your retail partners and staying informed about the demand for your products, you can spot trends early and adjust your strategies to meet the market’s needs.

3. Implement location-based analysis across your items

Location-based analysis can be a powerful tool for optimizing the placement and sales of your products. By analyzing sales data by location, you can gain a deeper understanding of how your products perform in different markets and identify any trends or patterns in customer behavior. For example, a certain type of winter coat may sell particularly well in Minnesota but not as well in Massachusetts. Additionally, you can use location-based analysis to compare the performance of your products across different types of retailers, such as department stores versus specialty stores. You can also compare online versus brick-and-mortar sales and understand how these channels affect your revenue and profitability. This analysis can help you determine which types of retailers are the most effective at selling your products and adjust your distribution strategies accordingly. By leveraging location-based analysis, you can make informed decisions about where to focus your resources and drive sales for your business.

4. Prevent stockouts by honing your promotion strategy

Understanding which products are selling best is crucial for any supplier looking to optimize their promotion strategy with retail partners. By analyzing sales and inventory data, suppliers can identify which products are in high demand and tailor their promotion efforts accordingly. This effort can involve offering targeted discounts or creating targeted marketing campaigns to drive sales for certain products. Additionally, by staying informed about which products are selling well, suppliers can better anticipate demand and prevent stockouts by ensuring a sufficient supply of popular products for consumers.

5. Proactively communicate, internally and externally

Effective communication about sales and inventory trends has numerous internal and external benefits. Empowering your sales and planning teams with visibility into sales data and trends can help them better capitalize on sales opportunities and areas of potential growth.

In addition to the internal benefits, effective communication is essential for strong retail partnerships. Collaborating with retailers using data fosters transparency and trust, and helps you stand out as a strategic partner with data-backed recommendations. By proactively communicating with retailers, suppliers can help their partners make informed decisions about reordering and promotional strategies to prevent stockouts and surpluses. Ultimately, this leads to increased sales and profitability for both parties.

Looking to prevent stockouts? SPS Commerce can help.

For companies to succeed with inventory management, they must have a proactive strategy for communicating when stock levels are falling too low or too high. They need solutions to analyze what items are flying off shelves and what merchandise is performing poorly. If you’re a supplier trying to get a better handle on how to prevent stockouts, see how the SPS Commerce Analytics solution can help improve your inventory management processes.

Suppliers and manufacturers can help create a better customer experience by improving product descriptions and item data. This helps both the end consumer, buying from a retailer or receiving products shipped direct-to-consumer (D2C); and a buyer, purchasing for drop-ship or wholesale. Certain attributes, including dimensional data for packing and shipping, should be shared with a shipping partner like a 3PL. 

Evaluate your item data

Item data should be comprehensive and accurate. This sounds obvious, but how many times have you ordered something online with an expectation that wasn’t met when the product arrived? Maybe the size was wrong, or the material wasn’t what you expected. This happens more often than you’d think, and it’s all due to inaccurate or incomplete item data.  

Accuracy is a key element of item data. The end consumer will lose trust quickly if the product description says one thing and the delivered item doesn’t match that description. If there are mistakes in your item data you could see more returns, and your customer satisfaction and reputation will suffer. It’s likely that your customers and trading partners will look elsewhere for similar products. 

Some items are so complex, their attributes number in the hundreds. For example, when buying a refrigerator, you need to know the height, width, depth, fridge volume and freezer volume. But there are also multiple attributes in categories like appearance, controls, filter details, refrigerator details, freezer details, icemaker details, dispenser details, refinements, compatibility, configuration and much more. Each attribute provides valuable information a customer needs to determine if the product is right for them. When there’s not enough information about an item, buyers are reluctant to proceed with the order. Or they may be more likely to return items that don’t work. According to data from Forrester, e–Commerce return rates can be 2 to 3 times higher than those of brick-and-mortar stores.   

As a trusted business partner, it’s important for you to support the key business challenges and priorities of your retailers. For example, they may require certain data points to help with their inventory management process. Retailers depend on you for accurate and comprehensive item data they can pass along to their customers. Without it, you’ll miss out on potential sales and partnerships. 

It’s important for suppliers to regularly evaluate the state of their item data. Review product feedback from your partners for clues about item data that might be missing. You can also try looking at your item data through the eyes of your trading partners. Is it accurate? Is there enough information? Is every attribute accounted for? Evaluate your operations to identify where item data is stored, who manages it and how it gets updated. This process may be daunting, but the potential benefits of having great item data are worth the effort. 

Benefits of better item data

Better item data leads to increased sales. It’s as simple as that! When your item data, product descriptions, photos and videos are thorough and accurate, your customers are more likely to buy from you and to keep coming back. 

Consistency in item data creates loyalty in your partnerships. That loyalty, in turn, leads to better reviews, more sales and fewer returns. When the product received matches the customer’s expectations, everyone benefits.  

Item data management

Of course, that’s much easier said than done. It’s a challenge to manage all that data, and to figure out how to store and share it with partners and customers.  

You might consider using a software solution that can help organize and store all your product data in one place. Some solutions have connections that make it easier for you to share item data with your trading partners. A third-party solution could help simplify the complexity of your item data management, helping you to focus on other important aspects of your business. SPS Commerce, for example, is the leading network to store and distribute your item attributes to all of your buying organizations, logistics partners and across all channels.  

When all is said and done, ensuring you have accurate and comprehensive data to share with your trading partners will increase sales, reduce returns and improve your business relationships. 

About Guest Author RKL eSolutions

Inventory Inquiries, Purchase Orders, Purchase Order Acknowledgement, and Advanced Ship Notices are just a few of the dozens of transactions available to a business considering an EDI solution. Each transaction has its own protocol, which is a shared standard among all businesses. That said, core EDI protocols haven’t changed much over the years. However, ERP systems that use EDI have moved to the cloud, which makes it even more important to choose an EDI Provider that supports cloud-based EDI-solutions with more cost-effective options and features available for your business.

Here are four factors we advise clients to consider before implementing an EDI solution.

What are the benefits?

The first discussion in the EDI debate is how exactly an EDI integration can improve your business. We’ve identified several benefits like

• Reduced Data Entry Errors
• Faster Access to Information
• Reduced Costs
• Better transaction security
• Less paperwork

And many more, but it all comes down to your specific business needs. Be sure to research what products are out there that can maximize productivity and reap all of the benefits EDI has to offer.

Choose the Right Standard

Many businesses, especially smaller ones, work with much larger trading partners that have different EDI solutions expectations that could expand and evolve over time.  It’s important to choose an EDI Provider that supports a variety of standards and can keep up with any future changes to EDI protocols.

Not Just a Data Format

EDI is not just a set of data standards, it’s a new way of doing business. EDI will foster change in your organization, so it’s important that all appropriate stakeholders in your organization are involved in the process of moving to EDI.

Investment in Startup Costs

There is an initial cost in purchasing and deploying an EDI solution, as well as periodical small ongoing transactions costs. However, most businesses that implement EDI realize a very quick return on their investment.

Still not sure? Chat with a technology partner or advisor for more information about an investment in an EDI solution.

Suppliers need to maintain optimal levels of inventory to prevent stockouts and overstocks, but learning what levels are best and staying on top of evolving trends is difficult. To prepare for today’s world of fast-changing demands, it’s important for suppliers to evaluate sales trends when planning inventory.

What are the disadvantages of stockouts?

As a consumer, you probably don’t like to see the words “out-of-stock” on an item you want to purchase. When that happens, you might visit another site or store, or choose a different item altogether. Either way, someone is losing out on a potential sale. 

No matter where the fault lies, your business relationships suffer when there are stockouts. They result in a poor customer experience, which may keep consumers from coming back to your brand in the future. Your retail partners may receive the brunt of customer dissatisfaction when items are missing from their shelves or online stores, leading to a breakdown in trust. 

Aside from the lost sales, stockouts cause an additional financial loss. In order to catch up with demand you may incur production costs, paying for things like overtime, production rush fees and expedited shipping. 

What are the disadvantages of overstocks?

On the flipside, it is just as risky to have excess inventory on hand. A warehouse full of slow-moving product ties up your open cash flow and paralyzes your ability to bring in new goods. Your aging assortment quickly becomes dated in the eyes of your trading partners, and they are likely to look elsewhere for in-demand products.

In order to offload excess and undesirable goods, you will be forced to look for discount partners and sell your inventory at a loss or even pay to move it to offsite storage. Nearly everyone in the world of trade has felt the pain of unequal supply and demand. It’s a delicate balance that can quickly tilt unfavorably and be difficult and costly to correct. 

Evaluate sales trends to avoid inventory issues

In order to prevent these and other costly inventory issues, you need to be proactive about evaluating sales trends. It’s vital for you to understand the lifecycle of your product after it leaves your hands in order to make smart and proactive decisions in your inventory planning. 

Accurate, applicable, real-time metrics will give you the power to easily identify sales trends and make business decisions for the future. With the right data in the right format, you can learn how geography, demographics and seasons are impacting your sales. 

Keep an eye on market trends to ensure your products meet the demand at appropriate levels. In doing so, you can gain a greater understanding of the optimal amount of inventory to keep on hand. You may have to learn as you go, but there are options in the market that can help you monitor trends and inventory levels. 

These tools will give you the full picture on your product’s lifecycle, from purchase order to point-of-sale. With this powerful knowledge, you’ll optimize your inventory, understand your market and be the expert in the eyes of your trading partners. 

Don’t be afraid to outsource if the logistics of collecting and evaluating sales and inventory data isn’t within your wheelhouse. Take advantage of the expertise that exists in the market and bring on a third-party to assist where needed. You’ll see increased efficiency across your business, giving you the tools and confidence you need to succeed. 

Order to invoice, manual vs. automated

Purchase order to invoice three-way matching is a basic transaction reconciliation process for retailers to use in approving payment to a supplier, vendor or wholesaler upon completion of an order. This accounting procedure involves:

• Buyer’s purchase order
• Seller’s purchase order acknowledgement
• Seller’s purchase order change request
• Seller’s invoice
• Inventory receiving sheets or advance ship notice delivered to the buyer’s warehouse

Without automation, a person has to collect and compare the documents manually as part of the matching process. When documents get lost in the shuffle, a retailer may end up paying for the wrong quantity, price or shipping costs. If reconciliation and the subsequent payment doesn’t happen quickly enough, the retailer can miss out on promotions and discounts for timely payments. Human error and mistakes can become costly with manual processes.

EDI is one solution that automates purchase order to invoice reconciliation. This process enables you to exchange transaction information digitally. Through EDI, all vital business documents are standardized to match each parties’ requirements so information can be exchanged electronically. Documents such as purchase orders, purchase order acknowledgments (POA), advanced ship notices (ASN) and invoices can all be sent directly from the software and tools you already use.

Three-way match simplifies the transaction reconciliation and payment processes, automatically approving all documents that match for payment while setting aside items for further review. The only time a person needs to review a transaction is if something in the documentation doesn’t match. For most retailers, 70 percent of all invoices pass the invoice matching process without any problem. This means you can shift your resources to other work that could save money, such as issues related to price, quantity or payment terms.

Why automate order to invoice reconciliation?

Automated order to invoice reconciliation can add to your bottom line without making any drastic changes. Supply chain experts have estimated that retail organizations overpay an average of $120 to $150 per purchase order on things that are preventable, such as tracking down missing paperwork, fixing inventory errors, delays due to manual receiving processes, paying flawed or downright fraudulent invoices, incorrect pricing and more.

If a retail organization sends out 100,000 purchase orders each year, that adds up to $12 to $15 million lost. EDI and automated processes may not be able to fix all money problems, but together they can drastically reduce and even eliminate issues associated with the order to payment process.

One of our retail customers told us they used to have 15 full-time employees solely dedicated to managing the company’s invoices for their stores and warehouses. After implementing order to invoice matching via EDI and automating order to invoice reconciliation, they reduced their accounts payable staff by 66 percent to just five employees. In addition to helping the company grow their business by seven percent year-over-year, EDI automation saved over half a million dollars yearly just by reducing staff.

Automated order to invoice reconciliation process is a practical solution for a repetitive, time-consuming process that’s vulnerable to human errors. It can help retailers add hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars to their bottom line without making drastic changes in how they do business. Imagine what opportunities could be explored with the money that’s saved?

Discover the value in increasing automation with EDI and a full-service team of experts from SPS Commerce. We have a suite of products that enables retailers to automate processes and save time and money.

This is a tough task for a small business, especially when day-to-day order processes take so much time. After you receive an order and send status updates, the next steps of shipping and invoicing require patience and attention to detail. When done manually, these processes have many possibilities for errors. If you automate shipments and invoices, you reduce errors and have more time to focus on your business goals.

Automate data entry across your shipping process to avoid errors

Shipping complexity varies by trading partnership and sales channel. Some trading partners require you to use their account or portal, while others will let you shop around for the best rates. Depending on your size, you may be able to get discounted rates with a trusted carrier. Or you may spend hours comparison shopping, switching between open tabs on your computer to compare rates and shipping times, and manually writing down tracking numbers. Any kind of manual data entry, into an ASN or BOL for example, leaves plenty of room for human error.

When you have multiple shipping methods, it is complicated to send your trading partners and consumers accurate, timely shipping information. Customers get frustrated when errors are made, leading to mistrust and damaged relationships. With new orders coming in every day and regular shipments going out, this complexity can stress out you and your team.

Remove complexity from your shipping process with automation. An automated carrier service allows you to rate shop the providers you know and trust, showing you the fastest lead times and lowest rates. Rather than clicking through multiple tabs and taking notes, you select the best shipping options for your individual retailers in one place. When you remove manual data entry, you minimize human errors. When product information from orders is automatically populated into your shipping documents, you can’t make typing mistakes. With some automated shipping platforms you can even print shipping labels and packing slips directly from the same portal. 

Automated shipping also improves your customer experience by reducing shipment times and eliminating missed shipments. Shipment information is delivered to your trading partners and sales channels through a direct, digital connection, so you won’t have to get on the phone for each order. Customers and consumers know when their shipment will arrive, which leads to greater trust and satisfaction. 

Shipment automation maximizes your time, reduces errors and helps you achieve greater success with your retailers. Added efficiency in your shipping process will lead you to look for it in the rest of your workflow.

Automate your invoices to skip data entry

Invoicing, like shipping, is difficult to manage manually. Without automation, you probably handle invoices one at a time. With orders coming in regularly, the paperwork really builds up. On top of that, manual entry of  invoices into your accounting system provides ample opportunity for errors. Plus, you have to stay on top of changes in your retailer’s requirements.

The time it takes to go between systems, key in data and keep track of requirements, seriously slows down your order-to-cash cycle. Even if you have a smooth fulfillment process, whenever you enter data manually, your accuracy can suffer. Mistakes on invoices lead to extra time spent resolving issues and could mean chargebacks from your retailers or damage to your relationships.

Integrating your accounting, shipping and sales software is a game-changer. Rather than manually entering invoices and switching back and forth between platforms, you step back and have invoices automatically filled, populated and sent out after your shipments. You don’t have to keep track of requirements or worry about accuracy. You’ll always be in compliance and avoid chargebacks. Plus, you will free up time to focus on other important priorities for your business.

Streamline your order fulfillment

When shipments are automated and invoices are connected across platforms, your business runs more smoothly. Your team makes fewer errors and the entire fulfillment process is streamlined, giving valuable hours back to your team. 

For more insights on how to automate shipments and inventory, contact our team.