Managing backend processes like inventory, sales orders, and fulfillment can be overwhelming, especially as your business grows. Automation is the key to reducing manual work, improving accuracy, and freeing up your time to focus on growth. In this guide, we’ll explore how automating five crucial backend functions can transform your business:

1. Inventory Management
2. Sales Orders
3. Fulfillment
4. Raw Ingredient Management
5. Forecasting

Let’s delve deeper into how automation in each of these areas can simplify your business operations:

1. Inventory Management: Maintain Accurate Stock Levels

Effective inventory management means knowing what products are available, where they are, and when to reorder. Automation helps you:

• Track stock levels in real time.
• Optimize reorder points to prevent stockouts or overstocking.
• Analyze inventory trends for better decision-making.

With an automated system, you can streamline how products move in and out of your inventory, minimizing storage costs while ensuring you always have what customers need.

2. Sales Orders: Speed Up Order Processing

Sales orders kick off the fulfillment process. Automation allows for:

• Seamless integration with e-commerce platforms, automatically importing orders.
• Accurate tracking of orders from receipt to delivery.
• Reduced manual data entry, lowering the risk of errors.

An automated sales order process ensures a smoother flow from customer purchase to order fulfillment, enhancing efficiency and customer satisfaction.

3. Fulfillment: Enhance Delivery Speed and Precision

The speed and accuracy of your fulfillment operations can directly impact customer satisfaction. Automation helps by:

• Generating pick lists based on real-time inventory.
• Ensuring precise and swift packing and shipping.
• Tracking orders in transit, offering transparency to customers.

Integrating fulfillment with other backend processes ensures that every order is accurately prepared and dispatched, building trust with your customers.

4. Raw Ingredient Management: Streamline Your Supply Chain

For businesses that manufacture products, managing raw ingredients is as crucial as handling finished goods. Automation assists by:

• Tracking raw material quantities and usage.
• Ensuring continuous availability to prevent production delays.
• Low inventory alerts.

Automated raw ingredient management allows for efficient production runs, minimizing downtime and waste.

5. Forecasting: Plan for Future Demand Effectively

Forecasting uses historical data to predict future demand, guiding your inventory, production, and staffing decisions. Automated tools enable:

• Data-driven analysis of past sales patterns.
• More accurate demand forecasting, helping to plan stock and production.
• Quick responses to market changes based on real-time insights.

Integrated forecasting capabilities provide valuable insights that support proactive business planning and help scale operations efficiently.

How Kahawa 1893 processes orders 30x faster with Doss

Over the last few years, Kahawa 1893, a coffee brand, experienced month-over-month record growth. They managed their business through a mountain of spreadsheets. The team had constructed functional inventory management systems, procurement processes, issuance of freight quotes, invoicing, and more. But they were growing too fast for their team to keep up. They needed to cut down the time it took to process orders without introducing data entry errors.

After implementing Doss ERP, the teams quickly constructed multiple workflows that addressed their core needs.

• Receive orders from Kahawa’s wholesale accounts
• Process orders to either pull from stock held by their vendors or issue work orders for direct fulfillment
• Transfer stock between their various stock-holding locations
• Provide SKU-variant pricing with cost-flow-through to POS

‍

What was the result?

The time it took to process one order dropped from about 10 minutes to 20 seconds.

Steps to Start Automating Your Backend

1. Assess Your Current Processes: Identify bottlenecks and repetitive tasks that could benefit from automation.
2. Document Workflows: Clearly outline each process step, from inventory management to order fulfillment.
3. Choose the Right Solution: Opt for a platform that integrates various backend functions into one system.
4. Implement Gradually: Begin automating one area at a time, allowing your team to adapt.

Looking for a comprehensive, integrated solution? Platforms like Doss’s Adaptive Resource Platform (ARP) offer a seamless way to manage and automate these critical backend functions, helping businesses grow without the hassle. Wish to connect?