Replacing Manual Bookkeeping with Sales Management Software

Sales management software is increasingly becoming an effective tool in controlling business activities of enterprises.

Using Excel and paperwork are two extremely popular forms of sales management over the years. However, facing the strong development of modern technology, Excel and books began to reveal many weaknesses. The emergence and development of sales management software is considered the key to helping businesses optimize their business operations. So why is sales management software the perfect choice to replace traditional tools? This article by Saigon Express will help you answer this question

What is sales management software?

Sales management software is a type of application, or in other words, a tool to support sales management and provide a full range of functions to help businesses handle tasks effectively, quickly and accurately.

Sales management software helps managers enter data faster, as well as grasp details about customer data, product information, goods, manage logistics activities, manage orders, manage employees, statistics on revenue, sales volume, support printing invoices,... 

Therefore, this software is not only easy to use, helps manage sales activities well, but also quickly handles necessary requests to support business development. Furthermore, with smart storage functions, sales management software also helps ensure that the sales process runs smoothly.

Why should we stop using Excel and books to manage sales?

Spends a lot of time and effort 

Anyone who has ever used Excel or books to manage sales, whether new or experienced, must admit that they are very time consuming and laborious. With these two forms of management, you need to be focused and meticulous in entering each data or recording detailed numbers and product codes manually, which can easily cause errors. Day after day, this will make you feel depressed and tired, not even having much time to relax and rest after a long day of work.

Besides, if your store has too many product codes and many different product prices, the level of detail and meticulousness of the work will be many times greater. Many business owners have shared that every time they conduct an inventory count at the end of the month, they almost spend the whole day just recording books or entering data into Excel spreadsheets and always feel extremely stressed. Because just a little mistake, you will likely have to start over.

There can be many risks

Excel and bookkeeping are two traditional forms of business management that have been commonly used for many years. However, data management and storage is also a big concern for restaurant owners. 

Specifically with Excel, when the computer breaks down, Excel will also be disabled. That can cause data saved in Excel to disappear completely. Or simply if there is a sudden power outage while you are working on Excel but have not yet pressed "save", all data will be completely lost and cannot be recovered.

As for using books for management, you will face the risk of lost documents, miscalculations, and recording errors. Because you have to calculate on a handheld calculator and take notes in books, the operation is cumbersome and very time-consuming. 

Besides, the problem of preserving and storing books so that they are not damaged or rotten is not easy at all. Hundreds, thousands of transactions or customer and supplier information can be lost if there is an unfortunate fire, theft, drop, etc.

One of the other risks that business owners may encounter when managing business activities with Excel or books is that it is easy for their employees to create fake data to siphon money. With tons of data with complex figures and long characters recorded and stored through Excel and books, it is very difficult for business owners to well control the quantity of imported and exported goods, revenue and expenditure transactions that arise every day... accurately.

Costly

Many business owners believe that using Excel and books to manage sales will help save costs, because Excel can be installed for free on computers and books can be purchased at a fairly cheap price. 

However, there is a truth that few people think about: Excel and books use manual calculation methods. This requires you to recruit one or more data entry staff for your business. The salary for a data entry employee is not cheap, ranging from 6,000,000 VND to 7,000,000 VND/month. 

Not stopping there, if you use books to record and manage business, you will need a space large enough to store and preserve all your documents and data. The amount of money spent to buy books is small, but the value of the data it contains is huge. Nowadays, not all businesses and stores have large enough space, so finding space to store records and documents is quite expensive. 

Having been very popular with traditional businesses from the past until now, Excel and books are gradually revealing many weaknesses and are no longer suitable. Instead, sales software has many advantages and brings benefits to customers.

The great benefits that sales management software brings

Save costs and time

It cannot be denied that applying machinery, software, and technology to business will help shorten the time compared to bookkeeping. But is it really cost-effective? Because some sales software requires businesses to invest initial costs to build and put into application or spend money to rent monthly or yearly. 

This is a completely wrong thinking. With sales management software, you not only save costs on hiring employees but also avoid loss of revenue and limit the loss of goods. You can manage your work smoothly even when sitting at home, all orders and data are updated clearly and accurately.

Support effective management of resources

Sales management software can also help manage the productivity of each employee and evaluate whether the employee is doing well. From there, come up with appropriate reward and training plans. 

The employee decentralization function in sales management software helps you manage each employee closely. For example, when you assign a specific task to an individual, other employees are not allowed to interfere with steps or data that are not related to their tasks.

Save activity history every time data on the system changes. Thanks to that, whenever there is an abnormality, you will easily recognize it and handle it promptly.

In addition, with a revenue report full of detailed information on a daily and hourly basis, business owners can manage each order, avoiding employee theft and causing losses. With this software, you will not miss a single expense because every transaction is automatically updated in the financial report.

Management becomes easier 

With sales management software, inventory and inventory management activities also become much easier. You can quickly see the quantity of each material or commodity in stock. From there, know which items are out of stock/about to run out and need to be restocked, which items sell well, which items bring in high revenue, etc. 

Besides, the inventory warning function will send you a notification when there is a product whose inventory exceeds the allowed level. Thanks to that, you can detect inventory in a timely manner to take quick measures.

All data related to transactions such as revenue and expenditure, sales, debt, etc. will be statistically calculated by the sales management software and shown in the report. This will help you have a more comprehensive view of the business situation quickly instead of taking time to synthesize. 

Remote management function will help you monitor business activities anywhere. Even if you are absent for many days, you can still be proactive in management work. In addition, you will promptly detect problems instead of waiting for reports from staff or only knowing when checking, making things more serious.

Create flexible connections and coordination between departments

Sales management software is also useful in coordinating and supporting the activities of other departments to increase efficiency. It has a centralized management mode that regulates business processes, helping to reduce production costs and effectively control inventory. 

The benefits that sales management software brings are huge, helping to save effort and time for managers and employees. Modernize work processes, apply technological advances to provide appropriate calculation and quantitative formulas for products, control inventory, and detect errors occurring in which parts and stages. You can even check each employee's shift to find the cause of loss and fraud.

Capable of processing large volumes of data

Sales management software becomes especially useful when you are working with extremely large volumes of data. For business households and small businesses, book management may be enough, but when your scale is higher, up to hundreds of customers or hundreds or thousands of different items and product codes, data management will be quite a difficult problem.

Helps the company's image and services become more professional

Using sales management software, all operations become more professional and faster. For example, replacing an order hastily written by hand on paper, printing invoices will gain customers' trust, and the image of the store business will also become more professional. 

Effective customer service is a factor related to the survival of a business today. Sales management software can quickly save customer information while billing. Therefore, you can know which customers frequently buy products to set up separate incentive programs for them. 

You can also easily rely on that information to send emails or messages to customers to notify them about promotions, new products or birthday gifts... At the same time, through this you can also find out the reasons why customers do not return to buy products to have a suitable way to "retain" and turn new customers into loyal customers.

Conclusion

Sales management software is gradually becoming a useful and indispensable tool for businesses in the current era. Hopefully with this article, readers will understand the benefits and importance of this tool for their business operations. Stop using old methods like Excel, books, etc. to manage. Instead, applying advances in science and technology, especially sales management software, will help your business operate smoothly, effectively and with few errors.