Helium 10 inventory management software is a cloud-based inventory that helps small business owners and entrepreneurs manage their inventory, sales, and purchasing processes.
It offers features like:
- Restocking suggestions so you never have to worry about under or overstocking your inventory
- Automated workflows for optimization
- An intuitive interface to access all inventory information
Here’s everything you need to know about Helium 10 Inventory Management.
But before you do, don’t miss out on our discount codes to get a better deal!
Helium 10 Inventory Management Overview
Running an online business means having to keep your inventory under control.
Amazon inventory management is crucial to running a successful business.
Timing inbound shipments and monitoring low stock levels might affect sales momentum, which is why you must have the right tools at your disposal.
Here are the features that come with Helium 10 inventory management to help you maintain full control over your inventory.
Helium 10 has several features that make inventory management a breeze:
Restock Suggestions
The Restock Suggestions section on Helium 10 Inventory Management makes it easy to stay on top of your stock by putting all the information you need in one place.
Restock Suggestions has an overview of the items you’re running low on and the number of days until you need to restock your inventory.
It also outlines the estimated number of stock days left, recommended reorder status, projected reorder date, number of products to reorder and their costs, and the current location of ordered products. You will also see real-time updates on your orders, whether they are being processed for shipment or have arrived at their destination.
This feature will alert you when it’s time to reorder or restock based on recent sales statistics.You can tell which products you need to reorder or restock because it indicates if the product is running out by recent statistics. It also includes a breakdown of how many products are available for sale and how many are still in transit from Amazon warehouses or suppliers.
Suppliers
The “Suppliers” section has an overview of the suppliers from which you source your inventory. It outlines their contact information, address, lead times, and reorder frequency.
You can add and save all supplier details, including the SKUs of the products you get from them. It would be more helpful for you in the long-run to see where you source which products from.
Local Warehouse
The Local Warehouse section makes it easy to manage your inventory whether you’re using Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service or your own fulfillment network (MFN).
You can save on Amazon storage fees and be better prepared to deal with a sell-out threat in your FBA stock. You can combine this information with Profits data and know when to ship products to Amazon directly from your warehouse instead of ordering new stock directly from the manufacturer.
Purchase Orders
One of the most important ways to keep track of inventory movement is through the purchase orders feature. This section clearly outlines all the details you need in one glance, including units ordered, cost, date ordered, estimated arrival, and order status.
Inbound Shipments
With the Inbound Shipments tool, you can monitor the status of all shipments from your supplier to Amazon. It provides a clear overview of which items are en route, where, and when.
Settings
In the Settings tab, you can specify when you want Amazon to receive shipments from your local warehouse and what triggers your restock suggestions.
For example, if you are running a small business and do not have a lot of time to order products manually, you can set up the integration so that Helium 10 will send inventory updates to Amazon automatically. This will ensure that your inventory always remains at optimum levels.
You can also set up Helium 10 to automatically create new orders for you when an item runs out of stock in your warehouse or store. You don’t have to worry about manually adding more items when they run out—Helium 10 takes care of that for you!
The Main Features and Benefits
Helium 10 Inventory Management is a powerful tool for managing your inventory.
It has many features to help you stay on top of all your products in stock, incoming shipments, and pending orders.
The tool is completely customizable and can be configured to fit your specific business needs.
It highlights the importance of knowing:
- What you have in stock
- Where the items are stored
- Reorder status and date
- Supplier details
- Lead delivery times
- Purchase orders
- Shipments
How Helium 10 Inventory Management Can Save You Money?
One of the best ways you can save money for your business is by using Helium 10’s Inventory Management tool.
With this robust system, you can track your inventory in real-time and get alerts when items are running low or need to be reordered. You can also add products manually to integrate them into the existing system.
You will never lose a sale because an in-demand product is out of stock, and you won’t waste important storage space on overstock items. This will save you a lot of money in the long run.
Ways to Maximize the Use of Helium 10 Inventory Management Feature to My Benefit
There are many ways to maximize Helium 10 Inventory Management:
- Manage your suppliers. Use the vendor management feature to manage your supplier list, send purchase orders electronically, and track deliveries.
- Track inventory levels. Closely tracking inventory levels will help you avoid overbuying or underbuying certain products.
- Calculate inventory turnover rates. This tool will give you data regarding how often your stock turns over time so you can take measures to increase it for higher profits.
- Track Amazon storage fees. You can keep a close eye on Amazon’s FBA fees and take measures to minimize them.
How to Set Up My Inventory Management?
Setting up your inventory management on Helium 10 is easy and takes only a few minutes. However, before proceeding, there are a few things to keep in mind:
- Ensure your information is correct. All supplier and product information must be accurate.
- Ensure everyone knows how to use the system. If you run your Amazon storefront with a team, everyone must know how to use the system and navigate the software.
- Set up regular check-ins. Regularly check inventory levels and ensure all data is accurate and up-to-date to avoid stock issues.
Connecting to Seller Central
- Create or log into your Amazon Seller account.
- Connect your MWS Token to Helium 10 to get started.
Automating Your Inventory
- By giving access to Helium 10 to see your inventory, it can recommend specific suggestions to optimize your operations.
- You can take the recommendations and set them as tasks for you to complete. The software will monitor your inventory levels and alert you when needed.
- You can take its suggestions or manually order or transfer your products. The software will then create a task in Helium 10 to record when you ordered your products. This ensures transparency from beginning to end.
Managing Your Supply Chain
You can handle all operations from a single dashboard to monitor your products.
You can easily manage and monitor your:
- Purchase orders
- Local suppliers
- International suppliers
- Inbound shipments
There are two ways to create an order in Inventory Management. The first is to generate a local shipment or direct shipment purchase order.
Here’s how you can do it:
Creating a Purchase Order
- Click the PO Button on the Purchase Orders page. Alternatively, you could navigate to your Restock Suggestions page, select one or more products, then click the Actions button and select Create Purchase Order.
- Both solutions function the same way. However, making the Purchase Order from the Restock Suggestion Page also pre-populates the Purchase Order with your specified SKUs. By pressing the + Add SKU option, you may add additional SKUs to the Purchase Order.
- On the Create New Purchase Order page, provide a unique Purchase Order Name in the appropriate field. Inventory Management automatically populates this field with a sequential PO number, but you may edit it if you want.
- Next, select whether you’ll ship the goods from your factory to Amazon or to your local warehouse.
- Direct Shipment is only available for Amazon purchases.
- Local Shipment is used to dispatch orders to nearby warehouses.
- From the Supplier drop-down menu, select the manufacturer and shipper.
- Inventory Management calculates the ETA based on your Lead Time parameters. This option allows you to modify the processing and shipment timelines.
- Depending on your input, Inventory Management automatically generates Units to Order, Suggested Units, and Product Cost per unit for each SKU. The application also calculates the overall cost and quantity of the order. Furthermore, inventory Management shows you the maximum number of units Amazon permits for each SKU, which will help you avoid overordering.
- If you want to add extra stock keeping units to the order, click the + Add SKU option.
- After you’ve finalized your Purchase Order’s options and included all required SKUs, click the Continue button.
- After the order has been produced, the Purchase Order Screen will load the order details.
- At the top of the screen, Inventory Management displays the current status of your Purchase Order. Both Local and Direct purchase orders show the whole development process, with minor differences in the statuses.
- When you create a Purchase Order in Inventory Management, you must also send it to the appropriate supplier. This can be done by emailing the vendor if you export your Purchase Order as an Excel or PDF file.
- If you are manually altering the status of a Purchase Order in Inventory Management, you can choose to mark the order as Confirmed. This will update the Purchase Order’s status indication on the Purchase Orders page as well.
Inbound FBA Shipment
- To request an Inbound Shipment, go to Seller Central’s Purchase Order box and click Create Inbound to FBA. Incoming shipments must be generated from the purchase order so that Inventory Management may simply shift accounted-for merchandise. Failure to do so will necessitate manually erasing the PO.
- Choose your own label and package.
- The address of your supplier populates the From Address column on the Inbound Shipment by default.
- Click Continue after validating the Amazon shipment quantity. Inventory Management sends a request to Amazon, and Amazon responds with a list of Shipment IDs, Units per Shipment, FBA Locations, and Label Types. Inventory Management sends this information to Helium 10.
- Seller Central will add your shipment to your Inbound Inventory under Restock Suggestions once you confirm it.
- When you select Confirm Shipment, Inventory Management creates a new shipment entry.
- Log into Seller Central to complete the shipment order. Click the Shipment ID to access an Inbound Shipment in Helium 10. This opens the order’s FBA Shipment window.
- Open the FBA Shipment window and click the blue link. You may access Inbound Shipment from Seller Central by clicking Inventory > Manage Inventory.
- From the Manage Inventory menu, choose Shipping Queue.
- Helium 10 will transport you to the freshly created shipment. Select Work on Shipment to complete the procedure in Seller Central.
Local Shipment
- Transfer Shipment will be used when sending the shipment from your warehouse to Amazon.
- When your supplier informs you that your cargo has been sent and is on its way to your local warehouse, update the status by clicking the Mark In Transit To Warehouse button.
- When the items arrive at your local warehouse, click the Receiving button.
- The Quantity Received field for each item on a purchase order must be updated once it enters the Receiving phase. Check that you have entered all required information before proceeding.
- After selecting the Mark PO Received button, entering updated information into the Quantity Received box will immediately reflect the adjustments to your local stock. All modifications made to an order after it has been marked as Received will be lost permanently. Once everything is in order, click the Mark PO Received button.
- Your stock levels will be amended with the quantity received field on the PO.
- Click Close.
- Once a Purchase Order is closed, it is no longer shown by default. Click the Show Archived option on the Purchase Order Screen to look through closed orders.
How to Use Restock Suggestions?
Restock suggestions can help you maintain and improve your inventory.
Furthermore, you can use the recommendations to ensure you always have items your customers want.
Urgent Restocks
This handy section of your Restock Suggestions page shows you the number of items that will need to be restocked in the coming week.
Urgent Restocks Cost
This section is directly beside Urgent Restocks and displays the cost of restocking the items that need to be replenished within seven days.
Keep in mind that this data will be inaccurate if you failed to input the cost of goods sold in your Profits tool or in Restock Suggestions itself.
Upcoming Restocks
This reflects the number of items that need to be restocked within the next two weeks.
This will give you ample time to prepare before placing an order.
Upcoming Cost
This reflects the cost of upcoming restocks.
Open Purchase Orders
This section shows restock orders you’ve placed with your suppliers. If some haven’t been marked as received yet, you’ll see the total number of open orders in this section.
Open PO Cost
The Open PO Cost section shows how much your purchase orders cost.
Search
The first thing you’ll see after the overview dashboard on your Restock Suggestions page is the search bar. You can perform a quick search for any of your listed inventory.
Filters
Beside the search bar is a list of filters to help you narrow down your products and search results. You’ll be able to filter by favorites, suppliers, and statuses.
Importing
To the right of the three buttons, you’ll find a Bulk Data Import button.
You can import information on numerous SKUs so you don’t have to do it manually.
Exporting
The Export Results button allows you to export your data in PDF, CSV, and Excel formats.
Add SKU
Beside the Export Results button sits the blue + Add SKU button. This allows you to add SKUs individually.
- When you click this button, a pop-up window will appear on the top left of your screen.
- Click the drop-down menu. This will show you a list of the SKUs you have in Seller Central so you can automatically add them to your Restock Suggestions database.
Actions
The Actions button will allow you to do the following for any SKU on the table:
- Create a transfer shipment
- Remove SKUs
- Create a purchase order
SKU Table
The SKU Table compiles all the information on the SKUs you’re tracking at a glance.
Here, you’ll be able to check:
- Days of Supply – how many days the inventory should last
- Reorder Status – tells you whether or not an item is in stock, needs more stock, or is running low
- Reorder Date – when you’ll need to place a reorder
- Reorder Units – how many units should be reordered
- Reorder Cost – how much the reorder will cost
- Transfer Status – the status of your SKUs and whether or not they need to be transferred to the Amazon FBA warehouse
- Transfer Date – when you need to transfer inventory from your local warehouse or third-party provider into Seller Central
- Transfer Units – how many units need to be transferred by the transfer date
- Current – how much inventory you have left in the Amazon FBA warehouse
- Inbound – how many open transfer shipments have been transferred but have not yet arrived at the Amazon FBA facility
- On Order – how many units you have on order from purchase orders
- Local – how much inventory you have at your local warehouse
- Updated – the last date the information was updated
What Are Lead Time and Reorder Frequency in Inventory Management?
Lead time and reorder frequency are two of the most important metrics used in inventory management. Lead time is the average time it takes to receive an order from the time it is placed, while reorder frequency is the average number of times that an item is ordered before it runs out.
These suggestions can be helpful when you need to quickly add items to an order or prepare for an upcoming shipment. Keep in mind that these suggestions are based on past customer behavior and inventory levels.
Lead Time
How long will it take to manufacture and deliver this order? Manufacturing, freight, customs, delivery to the warehouse, and processing times should all factor into your system and timeline for reordering.
When calculating lead time, remember that the order will not be delivered until it is processed by the Inventory Manager.
For example, it takes two weeks for the product to be made, another week for shipping, then another week for customs clearance. If your warehouse is located in the same country as the manufacturer, then you can expect three weeks to pass before your product arrives at its destination.
However, if your warehouse is located in California while the manufacturer is based in China, then it may take up to 4 weeks or more before your order reaches its destination.
Reorder Frequency
Reorder frequency is the number of days between when you place an order and when you place the next.
Two main factors determine how much time passes between orders: the average demand for your product and your inventory turnover rate.
Keep in mind that if you order too frequently, your cost per unit will go up because you’ll be paying for shipping more often. But if you order too much, unmoving inventory will take up a lot of space and expenses. Finding the balance between the two is an integral part of being a successful Amazon seller.
FAQs
Can I Download My Entire Inventory List Into Helium 10 Inventory Management?
Yes. You can download your entire existing inventory, or you can choose to download only certain parts of it. If you want to keep track of your inventory levels and closely monitor the movements of your products, we recommend downloading all of them.
You can also download only the most important items on your storefront.
Why Are the Helium 10 Inventory Management Numbers Different From My Seller Central Account Numbers?
Two main things can cause the difference in quantities listed in Helium 10 Inventory Management and Amazon Seller Central.
The first is the timeline. Amazon Seller Central sends Helium 10 a new Inventory Report every day at midnight. After that report is sent, any sales or stock changes made on the same day won’t be shown by Helium 10 until the following report is received and processed 24 hours later.
The second reason is the methods of calculation. When looking at the Current Inventory field on the Restock Suggestions page, it’s important to know that this number represents:
- What’s in stock
- What’s being moved
- What’s ready to be processed for FCs
Helium 10 will get this information from Amazon, but they organize and present it in a slightly different way. With Available Stock, the goal of inventory management is to get as accurate a count as possible.
Conclusion
We’ve discussed some of the ways Helium 10 Inventory Management helps with stock management. We’ve also broken down how it helps sellers prepare for restocking, track suppliers and shipments, and generate purchase orders.
Helium 10 simplifies the difficult work of inventory management. Keeping track of inventory is straightforward with Helium 10’s helpful features. And after you’ve mastered these core metrics, you’ll be able to take your business to new heights and assure its long-term success.
Now it’s your turn to overcome the trivial challenges in business.
Click here and try Helium 10’s Inventory Management, TODAY!
