Inventory management software for labs

The key facts

• Sample tracking is a LIMS job: chain of custody, assay workflows, compliance records. BSimple does not do this and does not pretend to.
• Stock on shelves is inventory management: reagents and consumables with lot numbers and expiry dates, locations, reorder levels, stocktakes.
• BSimple's relevant strengths: batch/lot tracking with expiry, traceability search from receipt to issue, multi-location quantities, reorder levels.
• Best fit: labs run like storerooms, and the suppliers who stock them — not research sample workflows.

First, which problem are you solving?

If the search is really about samples — registering specimens, tracking which assay they are in, recording results with an audit trail for accreditation — you need a Laboratory Information Management System. That is a specialised, regulated category, and BSimple is not it. Buying operations software to manage samples would fail an audit and, more importantly, fail the science.

If the problem is stock — the lab store, reagent fridges, the consumables that run out mid-experiment — that is inventory management, and the requirements look like any perishable-goods business: know what you have and where, respect expiry dates, trace which lot a consumption came from, reorder before you run out. This is the job BSimple is built for, and the rest of the page is about it.

What transfers from industrial inventory to lab stock

• Batch and lot tracking with expiry. Every receipt of a reagent or medium becomes a tracked lot with an expiry date; first-expired-first-out becomes a workflow rather than a memory test.
• Traceability search. The question "where did this lot go, and which lots did this batch of results consume?" has a searchable answer from supplier receipt to issue — the same machinery food and pharmaceutical producers use for recalls.
• Locations done properly. Quantities live per location, so the freezer, the store room and the annex each hold a truthful count.
• Reorder levels and stocktakes. Par levels raise the reorder before the shelf empties; cycle counts keep the record honest without a full shutdown.
• A clean start. Existing spreadsheets import — the Excel-and-barcode workflow many labs start with maps directly onto live records.

We build BSimple, so weigh that. It is used for stock where traceability matters — organic-certified producers report mass balance against ACO, NASAA and OFC requirements — but it is not sold as laboratory software, and accreditation-specific record-keeping lives elsewhere.

Honest boundaries, stated plainly

BSimple is cloud operations software for stock-carrying businesses: inventory, purchasing, orders, invoicing on one record, with accounting handed to Xero or MYOB, from $180/month AUD. It has no sample registry, no assay workflows, no instrument integration, and no validation documentation for regulated laboratory use. If those are requirements, a LIMS or ELN is the correct category and no amount of inventory software substitutes for it.

If you are a supplier to labs — distributing reagents, consumables or equipment — rather than a working lab, the fit is direct: that is wholesale distribution with batch and expiry tracking, and the inventory management pillar shows the whole picture. Adjacent reading: inventory management in healthcare settings and free options for asset and equipment tracking, which covers the non-consumable side of a lab.