Guide / lots and expiry
Free lab inventory software, honestly assessed
Labs run on lots: every reagent has an expiry, a lot number and an audit question behind it. Here is what free tools cover, and where BSimple's traceability fits the picture.
The short answer
- The lab-specific requirements: lot numbers, expiry dates, usage traceability, and counts that survive shared fridges.
- Free options: a disciplined spreadsheet for one bench, free tiers with caps, trials of real systems.
- The boundary: accredited labs (ISO 17025 and friends) need LIMS-grade compliance tooling — BSimple does not claim it.
- Where BSimple fits: labs that buy and supply, and suppliers to labs — batch traceability from $180/month (AUD), free to trial.
- Context: the full inventory system holds the wider system, this page one stop in it.
- 01The short answer
- 02What lab stock demands from software
- 03Where BSimple fits
What lab stock demands from software
Lab inventory is traceability with a freezer door on it. Lots and expiry: every reagent arrives as a lot with a date, and "which lots are active, which expire first" is a weekly question, not an annual one. Usage linkage: what a sample or experiment consumed — not for billing necessarily, but for the audit question "where did this lot go?". Shared storage: fridges and freezers hold everyone's stock; the record has to survive several people at one door. Counts on the fly: spot checks of one shelf, not annual closures.
A spreadsheet runs one bench while one careful person maintains it — and fails at the shared fridge, where a second editor and a lot lookup arrive in the same week. Free tiers of real tools help until the cap; what no free option gives is the joined record — lot tracking, traceable usage, purchasing raised before expiry stock-outs, an accounting handoff for the business side.
Where BSimple fits
We build BSimple, so weigh that — with the boundary stated first: BSimple is not a LIMS. Accredited laboratories running ISO 17025-style compliance need purpose-built laboratory information management systems with instrument integration and validated workflows; no honest page sells a business tool as one. Where BSimple genuinely fits: labs that buy and supply — a lab running as a product business (consumables, kits, samples-as-products) — and suppliers to labs, for whom the lab is simply a demanding customer. Both get BSimple's core: batches with expiry and use-by dates, two-way traceability search, live quantities across locations (freezers included), purchasing from demand, counts from any phone, invoicing handed to Xero or MYOB. From $180/month (AUD), with the free trial to run one real lot through.
Batch tracking software details the traceability layer, the medical inventory page covers the adjacent regulated boundary, and the free ladder prices the spreadsheet phase honestly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is BSimple a LIMS?
No — BSimple is business management software, not a laboratory information management system. It does not do instrument integration, accredited-method workflows or sample-test-result linkage. Accredited labs need LIMS; labs that trade products, or companies supplying labs, are BSimple's fit.
Does BSimple track lot numbers and expiry?
Yes — batch and lot tracking with expiry and use-by dates is core: receipts carry lot detail, traceability search runs supplier-to-consumer and back, and the record shows which lots are active and which expire first. For reagents and consumables, that is the part most worth having.
Can a small lab start free?
With a disciplined spreadsheet, yes — one bench, one maintainer, lot and expiry columns from day one. The graduation moment arrives with the second user, the shared fridge or the first audit question the sheet cannot answer; the trial is free when it does.
We supply reagents to labs. Is BSimple for us?
That is the cleanest fit: a distribution operation with sharpened traceability — lots, expiry, recall search — plus the commercial loop of portal ordering, purchasing from demand and invoicing to Xero or MYOB. The trial on one real product line is the honest test.
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