How to control your inventory and stop losing money

Why bad inventory is costing you money now

Every product sitting in your warehouse is frozen capital: money you spent and that doesn't come back until you sell. And every product that sells out just when the customer wants it is a lost sale, often forever, because the customer goes to the competition.

The lack of inventory control hurts in parts that you don't even see: capital trapped in things that don't rotate, lost sales due to shortages, losses due to expired or damaged products, and hours of your team counting by hand what a system would do alone. Added up, it is one of the largest and quietest money leaks for an SME.

Step 1: have real data, not approximate

You can't control what you don't measure well. The first step is to stop operating with "I think I have about ten" and start knowing exactly what you have, how much and where. Without reliable data, everything else is guesswork.

• Record each entry and exit as it happens, not at the end of the day or from memory.
• Use codes (SKU and barcodes) to identify each product without confusion.
• Do cycle counts: Instead of a giant annual inventory, count a chunk each week and keep the numbers up to date.
• If you have several points, keep the stock separated by location but visible in one place.

Step 2: define minimums, maximums and reorder points

Inventory control is not counting for the sake of counting, it is making better purchasing decisions. For this you need clear rules per product that tell you when and how much to order, so you don't go overboard or fall short.

• Minimum stock: the quantity below which you are at risk of shortages. Below here, you have to reorder.
• Reorder point: Consider how long it takes your supplier to supply. If it takes a week, reorder before you run out of anything.
• Maximum stock: the ceiling that should not be exceeded in order not to freeze capital or risk loss.
• Classify your products: those that sell the most and leave the most margin (the star ones) deserve more attention than those with low turnover.

Step 3: Attack the three classic escapes

There are three ways inventory bleeds you money. Good control combats all three at the same time:

• Overstock: money trapped in things that do not rotate. It is fought with clear maximums and reviewing which products have not moved for months.
• Stockout: lost sales due to running out of what people want. It is fought with minimums and well-placed reorder points.
• Waste: product that spoils, breaks or is lost. It is combated with rotation due to expiration (what comes first, leaves first) and frequent counts that detect shortages in time.

Step 4: Connect inventory to your sales

Here is the key that separates businesses that control their inventory from those that suffer from it: inventory should not be a separate Excel, it should be connected to your sales in real time. Each sale must automatically discount stock, in all your channels at the same time.

When inventory and sales are connected, the system warns you before you run out of something, shows you what's moving and what's not, and prevents you from selling what you no longer have. When they're separated, you're always one step behind, correcting mistakes instead of preventing them.

How Aura helps you

At Aura, inventory is connected to the rest of your operation from day one. Each sale, regardless of whether it came through your store, Mercado Libre or the point of sale, discounts the stock instantly and in all your channels, so you always see real stock.

You define minimums and reorder points per product, and the system notifies you when something is about to run out so you can reorder on time. The reports show you which products rotate well, which ones have been stopped for months, freezing your capital, and where you have shortages, so you can buy better. If you manage several warehouses or stores, you see the stock of each one in a single dashboard.

The underlying idea is simple: stop losing money on both sides. Neither overbuy what is not selling, nor run out of what is. With real data and automatic alerts, your inventory goes from a headache to an asset.