Inventory system key features, ranked by what they save

The features, ranked by what they save

• Live quantities across locations — saves every oversell and every stock-out apology; the foundation everything else reads.
• Allocation from live stock — orders promise what exists; the record refuses the second promise.
• Movement history — every number explainable later; disputes become lookups.
• Reorder and par levels — demand becomes purchase orders instead of emergencies.
• Counts from a phone — the record stays honest weekly, not annually.
• Batch and lot traceability — recalls and audits answered in minutes.
• The accounting handoff — invoices push on approval; payment status mirrors back.
• A customer ordering portal — capture happens without you, at each customer's own pricing.
• The full picture: how the inventory record works is the hub page for everything above.

Why this order, and not the vendor's

Vendors list features alphabetically or by roadmap pride; the money orders them differently. Live quantities and allocation come first because they stop money leaving — the oversell apology, the discount to keep a customer after a miss. History comes next because it converts arguments into lookups — the hours recovered at every disagreement. Reorder levels and counts are the quiet compounding savers: fewer emergencies, fewer archaeology sessions, a record that stays trustworthy without heroics. Traceability is industry-dependent — decisive for food, beverage, cosmetics and medical supply; optional elsewhere. The accounting handoff saves the bookkeeper's month, every month. The portal saves the order-entry hours and the transcription errors.

The test for each feature is the same: make the vendor demonstrate it with your data, in the trial — the definition page gives the test scripts, and the vendor guide the process around them.

Where BSimple fits

We build BSimple, so weigh that. The features above are BSimple's list, in its own honest order: live multi-location quantities, allocation with negative-stock guardrails, attributed movement history, reorder and par levels, phone-browser counts, batch and lot traceability with use-by dates, the Xero/MYOB handoff with US systems rolling out, and the customer ordering portal — all included in plans from $180/month (AUD), no module assembly. The features page shows the screens, and the free trial runs them on your own products.

The boundary: features BSimple deliberately lacks — MRP scheduling, HR, payroll, POS, offline mode — are the same list it publishes everywhere. A feature page that only adds is an advertisement; the subtractions are what make it a specification.