My thought is that right now I use a printed inventory sheet. It consists of fields for: date, item name, supplier, description (case,can,bundle,weight,amount,size,etc.), starting inventory, ending inventory, par level, and amount to be ordered. I walk around with this sheet on a clipboard a do a physical inventory. Next, I take another sheet of paper and write out my order to be called in the next morning. My manager at my other shop does the same thing, calls me and I write that order list down as well. On delivery day, I then copy all of the invoice info and enter it into a spreadsheet. I believe an app on my phone that links up to a website could streamline this process.
For one, I would love to eliminate the paper. I would love to be able to walk around taking inventory with my phone in the palm of my hand. My ideal situation would be for the app to allow me to have my par levels and the above info entered. I would then be able to just enter the date, enter the inventory amounts and then click a button to generate my order based on my par levels. I would then hit another button to sync it to a server where I could view, print, edit, etc. I would have my manager at my other shop do my manager do the same process and at some point bring up both orders, review, and print them out or just read them to my supplier. This would be my ideal situation for an inventory app. It might not be how others would want to do their inventory. I would also want to be able to view different reports (order history, pricing history,etc.) with the app.
