Choosing the right building for your new warehouse can make or break your success. If the building does not function effectively to meet your business needs, that will be a big barrier on your path to success. Likewise, if the location is too far out of reach, you’ll waste unnecessary time on traveling and shipping products. So, before you set up shop in a new location, be sure to consider your business’s needs, the physical location of the building, accessibility, and cost. (more…)
Properly managing a warehouse and running a distribution center is by no means a simple task. It ultimately requires a certain skill-set, one where the individual has the competencies to properly manage and protect inventory in storage, while also ensuring that products are shipped on time to customers. Here are five things to look for when hiring your next warehouse manager. (more…)
Discussions about technology and the workplace often revolve around topics such as e-commerce, social media, and mobile apps. However, technology is also making rapid advances within the industrial and warehouse workplaces. Here are six useful technological advances that are improving industrial companies. (more…)
Salesforce users now have access to a new inventory app that will make their jobs easier. No longer do salespeople have to guess if they have the right number of products in stock to fulfill orders they’re taking from customers. (more…)
Life is a matter of upkeep.
What do I mean by that? Well, there is a constant trade-off of between having what you want or need, and the precursory effort leading up to those things. You need to improve your health? Then you need healthy eating and exercise. You need a new windshield? Then you need to pay for it. You need a better relationship with your kids? Then you need to spend more time with them. Yes, I’m being general, but you get the point.
Call it the law of the harvest, cause and effect, even Maslow has some things to say about it, but it boils down to: put the energy in to get energy out. Keep in mind, this continues to be applicable in regards to maintaining those “things.” (more…)
Many manufacturing facilities and distribution centers have depreciation schedules to track high-cost assets that are depreciated over a number of years. These assets usually fall under categories such as factory equipment, tow motors, vehicles, and industry-specific instruments.
Other assets (often termed personal property) are less costly items that are expensed rather than depreciated. Many accountants today use a rule of thumb of $1,000 to determine whether the item is depreciated or considered an expense item. Look around any office, no matter what the industry; you will see tables, chairs, desks, lamps, file cabinets, computers, and printers – all of which are expensed rather than depreciated. An accountant explained that most computers are outdated within 18-24 months, so they can’t justify depreciating them. (more…)
When running a business, whether private or public, you need to keep a close eye on your stock. But you don’t have to look to Wall Street to check the stock that matters most. That’s actually your inventory stock. You can do that right from your computer by using Fishbowl Inventory.
Here are four “stock options” you can keep a close eye on with Fishbowl’s help:
Inventory Levels – With the scan of a barcode, you can look up the number of any product you have in your warehouse(s), on your shelves, and/or in transit. This is extremely useful because you can see in real time which products are well-stocked and which ones need to be reordered.
Multiple Locations – Whether you have one warehouse or a hundred warehouses, you can keep track of all the inventory items in them through Fishbowl Mobile. This enables you to transfer products from one location to another if demand for those products happens to be higher in one place than another. (more…)
If you’re in the manufacturing business, you continually watch the costs and profit margins of your products, but what about your overhead? Unlike direct costs like materials and labor, which fluctuate with your production volume, your overhead expenses typically don’t vary from month to month. These expenses, like rent, utilities, depreciation, insurance, and other similar fees, don’t typically reflect changes in production volume.
While many of your overhead expenses may seem fixed, today I want to share three things you can do to reduce your overhead and boost your bottom line!
Manage Your Contracts
Whenever a contract expires, there’s a potential to save money. Oftentimes, landlords and suppliers automatically expect an increase in price when the time comes to renegotiate contracts, but that shouldn’t always be the case. Shop around with competitors to see if you’re paying too much for things like rent, trash collection, Internet connection, and other utilities. It never hurts to have more information to bring to the table. (more…)
Inventory – probably the largest asset on your balance sheet and the one thing that makes your business go. You depend on your inventory control group to have the right combination of pieces and parts to keep production running smoothly. This inventory lump needs to be constantly shaped, molded, trimmed, carved, and tweaked until you get that useful, glorious mix of profitability that shapes your bottom line. (more…)
