How to choose warehouse software: the questions to ask first

Start from your working day, not the feature list

Before the first demo, write down on a single sheet of paper how goods move through your business. A pallet arrives from a supplier, someone receives it and puts the cartons on the shelves. An order comes in, the goods are picked, a document is issued, the customer pays two weeks later. Mark where things are retyped by hand today and where time is lost. Take that sheet to every vendor and ask to see exactly those steps, with your own products.

Does it keep stock per warehouse and per pack?

"We have 300 units" is not enough if 200 of them are in the other warehouse and 60 are already promised to a customer. Ask whether the program shows stock for each warehouse separately, whether it distinguishes on-hand from reserved stock, and whether it keeps the history of every movement. If you sell by the carton and by the unit, look at how packs are handled — for example, 12 units to a carton and 40 cartons to a pallet.

For comparison: SellM8 Warehouse keeps stock per warehouse with the history of every movement, and a customer order reserves the goods until it becomes a sale. Whichever program you are looking at, ask to see the same thing on screen — one product, two warehouses, one open order — and check that the three numbers add up.

• Can you see stock for each warehouse separately?
• Does the program distinguish on-hand stock from reserved stock?
• How does a transfer between two warehouses work, and who approves it?
• What happens to the differences after a stock-take?

Which documents does it issue, and how often do you have to retype?

Follow one sale from start to finish. Do you enter the customer and the items once, or retype them into a quote, then a proforma, then an invoice? A good sign is a document that comes out of the order with the same lines, quantities and prices. Ask about returns too: how a returned carton is recorded and how the goods go back into stock. What the documents themselves must contain is a question for your accountant, before you choose.

Who enters what, and who can correct what?

Mistakes happen in a warehouse every day: a wrong count, the wrong item, goods received into the other warehouse. What matters is what happens next. Ask whether there are roles with different permissions, whether the warehouse worker sees purchase prices, and whether a stock correction requires a reason. Ask to see the log — who changed what, and when. Without it, a month later nobody remembers why the number was changed.

Does it work on a phone and with a barcode scanner?

A warehouse is not a desk. If the program opens only on the office computer, someone will write on paper and retype it later. Try it on the phones your people really use, at the far end of the warehouse where the signal is weakest. Check whether the scanner finds a product from any screen, whether the program prints labels, and which barcodes it reads and creates.

What happens to your old data?

Moving data is easy to underestimate. Ask exactly what comes across from your current program: products, customers, opening stock, unpaid amounts. Which file format is needed, and who prepares the files — you or the vendor? It is sensible to start with a stock-take, so that you begin with accurate counts rather than inherited errors. Agree, too, on how long the old program stays open for looking things up.

How do you get out if you switch programs one day?

Ask this at the start, not at the end. Who owns the data and where is it kept — with you, on your own hosting or with the vendor? Can you export products, customers and documents at any time, to a file that opens without the program? What happens if you stop paying for support: does the program stop, or carry on without new versions? Get the answers in writing, in the contract.