Tracking your Inventory can become a complicated task if it’s not managed properly. Spreadsheets are the simplest way to manage your inventory and related data like stock, sales, purchases, orders, suppliers, and basic level reports for free!

It is pre-known that Excel spreadsheets have various limitations, but it can work for small businesses and start-ups in the beginning. Excel is a low-cost inventory management solution but not the best one.

Want to eliminate the limitations of Excel? Take up a Free Trial of Inventory management software

Download the Free Excel inventory template with formulas
We’ve done the back-hand formulating and linking of the datasheets. The sheet is ready for you to directly enter data so, Get started!

Let’s learn how to use the Excel template efficiently to get the most out of it

Divide and enter all the standard information related to Products, Orders, and Purchases in their respective Sheets, which are already categorized for you. Information like Product Name, SKU, Stock location, Supplier, Current Stock level, Reorder Point, Sales Channel, Purchase Order, Purchase Quantity, etc.

Using formulas which are pre-installed by us, in the inventory management excel template, Excel auto-fills or calculates- Total amount of Order, Purchases quantities to be bought, Stock location, and much more values, if they’re entered prior or once the basic information is entered.
We’ll further show how this is done.

Update your Product sheet daily to record available current Stock level or when there are any changes in standard information like SKUs or suppliers or on the addition of new product(s).

Update your Order sheet when a new order comes in and gets confirmed on any of your sales channels. This could be done on a daily or weekly basis, depending on your business type.

Update your Purchase sheet when a particular product reaches near Reorder point and is needed to be restocked. At his moment, a new purchase order is placed. This could be done biweekly or more, depending on the business.

The drawback of excel spreadsheets is that you have to manually enter all of your products and related information, time and again. Which is not the case with Free inventory management software available which is simpler than a spreadsheet. It will automate your processes easily to increase inventory management efficiency.

Uses of Excel Spreadsheets

You’ll find all of the below-mentioned formulas and applications in the Excel inventory template with formulas that are pre-loaded for you with functions and formulas along with interlinking of all the data!

Interlink the information

Certain information is dependent on other parameters which can be interlinked to cancel out manual calculation every single time. For inventory management using Excel, Selling Price is dependent on the Cost price and mark-up price. The mark-up price remains constant but the Cost Price for each product varies due to factors like Vendor, Demand of product, etc. Using the ‘SUM’ or ‘SUMIF’ Formulas in Excel, we have interlinked these 3 parameters to get the calculated Selling Price on its own. For every product:

Selling Price = Cost Price + Mark-up Price.

Mark-up price is pre-recorded.

Using SUM Formula, you get a calculation for Selling Price automatically, every time you enter the Cost Price.

Formula: “=SUM(G3,H3)”
Syntax: SUM(number1, [number2, …number_n])

Refer information

While keeping a record, the same information gets referred to multiple times. For inventory management, information like ‘Stock location’- which is attached to the SKU- is needed while dealing with 1. Purchasing- to know where to put that Stock once it arrives 2. Picking- to know where the product is lying 3. Returns- to know where to put the product back. When you have 1000+ products on hand, it is infeasible to record two or five or more information like the stock location for each SKU, again and again.

Using formulas like ‘VLookUp’ or ‘HLookUp’ in Excel, we help you duplicate the information as and when needed.

Example:

You want Supplier names from your Product page to the Purchase page, we have used SKU as the foreign key to look-up between the two pages/sheets and get the Supplier’s name displayed on the Purchase page, the very second you type the SKU!

Formula: “=VLOOKUP(D3,PRODUCTS!$D$3:$F$32,3,0)”
Syntax: VLOOKUP(value, table, index_number, [approximate_match])”

Pictorial representation of data

Analyzing data using only numbers and codes can make you go crazy! Excel provides various option for the pictorial representation of your data in the form of graphs, charts, diagrams, Smart Art, etc. This makes the analysis of the data much more organized and easy to interpret.

Highlights when to act upon

At times your products run out of stock and you are caught off guard! We have fed conditions into inventory Excel template using ‘Conditional Formatting’ which signifies an alert for you when a stock count reaches or crosses the Reorder point. This helps in alarming you before the stock runs out without the need for you to go through hundreds of cells each time and avoid any mishap. You can also differentiate columns and rows by colors or gradients based on distinguishing features.

Conditional formatting can be done for complex tasks and interventions also.

Forecasting

Excel allows trend lines to be extended beyond the graph, to offer predictions of future activity – and such forecasts can help businesses develop their future strategy.
Formula based forecasting can also be done using Excel’s ‘Forecast’ formula.
Forecasting for a y-value dependent on an x-value:

Formula: “=FORECAST(700,J3:J9,I3:I9)”
Syntax:“=FORECAST(x-value, known_y_values, known_x_values)”
You get y-value displayed.

But is Inventory Excel template, excellent?

Excel has efficient and easy-to-use formulas that do the job to a basic level.

It only works well for small businesses, start-ups, etc. or with less business in hand, but what post that? We’re sure you’re growing your business into a perpetual one, would you really want to limit to simple and basic tools?

Growing businesses like yours can’t afford to manage inventory using just Excel! They need something more, which is a Cloud-based Automated inventory management software which is quick, reliant and supportive!

Orderhive is one such software that manages your inventory data and automates your inventory functions in real-time, fitting all business sizes.

Learn more about the benefits.

Skip the manual work and AUTOMATE YOUR INVENTORY OPERATIONS NOW, FOR FREE!

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