--- title: "Inventory Software for Small Business: How to Choose" description: "Inventory software for small business, sorted by stage: spreadsheet, inventory app or WMS. What $0 plans leave out, and how SKUSavvy runs Shopify stock." url: https://www.skusavvy.com/inventory-software-for-small-business lastUpdated: 2026-10-21 --- # Inventory Software for Small Business Good inventory software for a small business tells you what you have, where it sits and when to reorder, without one person carrying it all in their head. If you sell on Shopify and ship from your own shelves, that means bin locations and scan-checked picking, not just a count. Here's how to pick the right type for the stage you're at. [START TRIAL](https://app.skusavvy.com/register) [SEE PRICING](https://www.skusavvy.com/skusavvy-pricing) ![SKUSavvy 3D warehouse map with shelves, bins and an inventory heatmap](https://res.cloudinary.com/deoyetsee/image/upload/v1792604053/bbc0d3a71ac46e3e56a2668af0d4a451.png) ## The Short Answer Match the software to how your stock moves, not to a feature list. A one-room stockroom with one person packing can run on a simple inventory app. Once a second person picks orders, or the same product sits in two places, you need software that tracks the location, not just the quantity. It's an easy line to cross without noticing. The count looks right on screen, and orders still go out late or wrong because nobody can find the units. We make SKUSavvy, a mobile warehouse management system for Shopify brands, so read this with that in mind. Competitor details below come from the vendors' own pages and the reviews ranking for this search, and anything that changes often is dated. If you already know you need bins and scanning, skip ahead to [SKUSavvy's warehouse management software](/warehouse-management-software). ## Three Stages of Small Business Inventory Small business inventory tends to move through three setups. Each one works until something specific breaks. ### Spreadsheet Fine for one person and a short catalog. It breaks the first time two people edit it, or a sale happens while nobody is updating the sheet. ### Inventory App Counts, photos, folders and barcode scans on a phone. It strains when one product lives in two places, or when orders need picking every day. ### Warehouse System Bins, scan-checked picking and packing, receiving against purchase orders and sync with your store. Worth it once you ship orders from your own shelves every day. None of these is wrong. Paying for stage three while you're at stage one is wasted money, and running stage one at stage three volume shows up as mis-picks, oversells and weekend counts. ## Which Software Is Commonly Used for Inventory Management? Six kinds of software show up in the reviews ranking for this search. They overlap, and it's common to run two at once, like a store's built-in inventory plus a spreadsheet. | Type | Examples | Good at | Watch for | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **Spreadsheets** | Excel, Google Sheets | Getting started today, in any layout you want | No scanning or store sync, and edits collide once a second person works in it | | **Store and POS inventory** | Shopify, Square | Quantities that go down as you sell | Quantities are tracked per store or warehouse location; Shopify doesn't track them by bin | | **Accounting software** | QuickBooks Online | Quantities and inventory value next to your books | Built for the books first, not for picking orders | | **Inventory apps** | Sortly, Zoho Inventory, SalesBinder | Item lists, photos, barcode scans and low-stock alerts | Entry plans cap users, items or orders | | **Accounting add-ons** | SOS Inventory | Sales orders, lot and serial tracking and assemblies on top of QuickBooks Online | Built around QuickBooks Online, with extra users billed on top | | **Warehouse management systems** | SKUSavvy | Stock by bin, scan-checked receiving, picking and counts, and store sync | More setup, and priced for businesses shipping orders every day | ### Spreadsheets A spreadsheet is the usual starting point, and for 50 SKUs in one room it's fine. The trouble is that it only knows what someone typed. Sales, returns and the box that got moved to the back shelf don't update it on their own. ### What Is Sortly Used For? Sortly is a mobile app for tracking inventory, supplies, tools and equipment from a phone. [Sortly's own page](https://www.sortly.com/business-inventory-app/) lists item photos, custom folders, barcode and QR code scanning, low-stock alerts, pick lists and a QuickBooks Online integration. It's a good fit for organizing and counting things, including assets you don't sell. Sortly's pricing page lists one user and 100 items on its $0 plan, with the QuickBooks Online integration on a paid plan (checked October 20, 2026). ### Can You Use QuickBooks for Inventory Management? Yes, for the basics. [Intuit's inventory page](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/inventory-management/) says inventory tracking is available in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced: quantities update as you buy and sell, low stock alerts tell you when to reorder, and a purchase order becomes a bill when the stock arrives. That page doesn't describe bin locations, barcode scanning or order picking in QuickBooks Online. That's the gap add-ons like [SOS Inventory](https://sosinventory.com/) and warehouse systems fill, and they connect to QuickBooks instead of replacing it. SKUSavvy's QuickBooks Online connection is a $50/month add-on that turns purchase orders into bills and syncs vendors, products, inventory adjustments and item costs. It doesn't create customer invoices; sales reach QuickBooks from Shopify. ### What About Shopify's Built-In Inventory? If you sell on Shopify, you already have inventory software. Shopify can store one bin name per product at each location, but it tracks quantity by location, not by bin. For one shelf of products, that's enough. Once orders are picked from a back room or a warehouse, you'll want bins and scanning on top. ## What $0 Plans Leave Out Several inventory apps have a plan that costs nothing per month, and they're a sensible way off a spreadsheet. Read the caps before you load your catalog, and work out which one you'll hit first. | App | Limits on the $0 plan | What needs a paid plan | | --- | --- | --- | | **Zoho Inventory** | One user and 50 sales orders a month | Customization, automation and in-depth reporting | | **Sortly** | One user and 100 items | More users and items, and the QuickBooks Online integration | | **SalesBinder** | One user account | Connecting another software product | | **Square** | Basic item and catalog management | Advanced inventory reports, barcode label printing, purchase orders and stock transfers between locations | | **Stockpile by Canvus** | Unlimited users, items and locations | There's no paid plan; it has no integrations, barcode scanning or mobile app | Sources: NerdWallet's roundup, updated July 10, 2026, and the Zoho Inventory, Sortly, SalesBinder, Square and Stockpile websites, checked October 20, 2026. Plans change, so check each vendor's pricing page before you commit. The pattern is what matters. A $0 plan is usually built for one person. The day you hire help, you either pay for seats or share one login, and a shared login means nobody can tell who moved what. SKUSavvy doesn't have a $0 plan. It has a 30-day trial with no credit card, then one price with unlimited users. ## Signs You've Outgrown a Simple Inventory App - A second person picks orders, and they keep asking where things are. - The same product sits in two places, like a pick shelf and overstock. - You've shipped the wrong item, or the right item in the wrong size, more than once this month. - Your store sold something the shelf didn't have. - Receiving means counting boxes against a paper packing slip and typing the numbers in later. - Your yearly count takes a whole weekend and still doesn't match. - Only one person can answer "do we have it?" and they'd like a day off. If two or more of those sound familiar, the problem isn't the count. It's that your software doesn't know where stock is or who moved it. ## Questions to Ask Before You Choose | Question | Why it matters | | --- | --- | | **Does it track stock by bin, or only by location?** | A location is a building. Pickers need a shelf and a bin. | | **Can one product sit in more than one bin?** | Pick shelves and overstock are normal. One location per SKU forces workarounds. | | **Does it sync with your store as orders come in?** | Every hour between syncs is an hour you can sell stock you don't have. | | **Does every pick get scanned?** | A wrong scan should stop the picker before the box is sealed, not after the customer opens it. | | **How many users does the plan include?** | Seat caps push teams into shared logins, and then the history stops meaning anything. | | **What counts toward the price?** | Per-user, per-item, per-order and per-location pricing grow differently. Price next year's volume, not this year's. | | **Does it run on the phones you already have?** | Phones, tablets and Bluetooth scanners cost less than dedicated handhelds. | | **Can you keep your existing barcodes?** | Relabeling every bin in the building is a week you don't want to spend. | ## Features and Benefits: How SKUSavvy Runs Small Business Inventory SKUSavvy is a mobile WMS for Shopify brands that pick, pack and ship their own orders, from a back room up to a full warehouse. Here's what each piece does and what you get from it. | Feature | What it gets you | | --- | --- | | **Stock by bin** | Only bins hold inventory in SKUSavvy, so stock is tracked by location. One product can sit in several bins, each with its own count. | | **2D and 3D warehouse map** | Shelves and bins sit on a layout of your space with an inventory heatmap, so a new hire can see where things are before they walk. | | **Real-time Shopify sync** | Orders, products and inventory sync with Shopify as they change. Several Shopify stores can share one account, and Shopify POS sales come off the warehouse you map them to. | | **Scan-checked picking and packing** | Receiving, picking and packing can each require a bin or item scan. A wrong scan raises an alert and has to be fixed before the picker moves on. | | **Batch picking** | Pick several orders in one walk, with a tote per order, routed through your layout. | | **Receiving and put-away** | Scan stock in against the purchase order, and the device shows which bin each item goes to, on the map. | | **Low stock and reorder** | Reorder Radar lists items projected to drop below their minimum before a new order could arrive, grouped by vendor with suggested quantities, and prefills the purchase order in one click. | | **Kits and bundles** | Assemble kits ahead of time or build them during the pick, and the component stock comes off as you go. | | **Cycle counts** | Assign counts by bin or product and complete them on any device, so you count a few bins a day instead of closing for a weekend. | | **Inventory logs** | Every movement is logged by action, employee and date, for each item and each bin. | | **Your existing barcodes** | Import the bin barcodes you already use, print bin labels, and print product labels at 2x1, 4x2, 4x4, 4x6 or a custom size. | | **Phones, tablets and scanners** | SKUSavvy is a web app. Open it in the browser or add it to the home screen. Phone cameras scan UPC, EAN, Code 128 and QR codes, and Bluetooth scanners pair too. | | **Unlimited users** | No per-seat fees, so every picker gets their own login and their own line in the log. | | **QuickBooks Online** | An optional $50/month add-on: purchase orders become bills, and vendors, products, adjustments and item costs sync. | If your stock lives in more than one place, [SKUSavvy's cloud inventory management](/cloud-inventory-management) shows how multi-location counts and bin-level locations stay in sync with Shopify. ![SKUSavvy stock replenishment table with min and max levels per item](https://res.cloudinary.com/deoyetsee/image/upload/v1792604079/a497ce4dc7b3aaf799dbe54a3add635d.png) ### Using Savvy Bot With Your Inventory Savvy Bot is the AI assistant inside SKUSavvy, and it works from your live account data. Ask how many units of a SKU are on hand, which items are running low, or for a report like your top sellers this month, and it answers with a table or chart, or opens the right page. It reads and explains. It won't change anything unless you turn on edits and approve each one, it tells you when it can't find a number instead of guessing, and it runs on AI credits. Deciding what to reorder, and counting the shelf, is still on you. ## Set Up SKUSavvy in One to Two Weeks Self-service setup usually takes one to two weeks, depending on how many SKUs and locations you have and how clean your data is. Here's the order we'd do it in. 1. Connect your Shopify store. Products, variants and barcodes come in from Shopify, so keep creating new products there. 2. Draw your layout: shelves, levels and bins, named the way your team already talks about them. 3. Import the bin barcodes you already have, or print new bin labels. 4. Count each bin and load the numbers, by scanning or with a CSV import. 5. Run a few practice orders in Test Mode before you go live. 6. Go live, then cycle count a few bins a day. ![SKUSavvy warehouse inventory table with on-hand stock per item](https://res.cloudinary.com/deoyetsee/image/upload/v1792604102/b438f3da260dc08ee3071970ea54a5e8.png) Hardware can wait. A phone camera is enough to start. A Bluetooth scanner and a thermal label printer are worth it once someone is scanning all day. ## When SKUSavvy Isn't the Right Fit If you don't sell on Shopify, SKUSavvy isn't built for you. Orders from other marketplaces come in through Shopify, not through direct connections. If you ship a handful of orders a week from one shelf, a simple inventory app or Shopify's own inventory will do, and our price won't make sense yet. If most of your orders are drop-shipped, you may not need a warehouse system at all. And if you plan production around bills of materials, start with manufacturing software. ## What SKUSavvy Costs As of October 20, 2026, SKUSavvy is $179/month, which covers your first 249 orders. Orders past that are billed per order, starting at $0.20 and falling as volume grows. Purchase orders and transfers count as orders too. At 300 orders a month, that's $179 plus 51 orders at $0.20, or $189.20. Users are unlimited, plans are month to month, and the 30-day trial needs no credit card. The QuickBooks Online add-on is $50/month on top, if you use it. Enter your monthly orders on [SKUSavvy pricing](/skusavvy-pricing) for an exact quote. ## Small Business Inventory Software FAQ ### Which software is commonly used in inventory management? Spreadsheets, store and POS inventory like Shopify or Square, accounting software like QuickBooks Online, inventory apps like Sortly or Zoho Inventory, accounting add-ons like SOS Inventory, and warehouse management systems like SKUSavvy. Small businesses often start with the first three and add an app or a WMS when picking gets busy. ### What is Sortly used for? Tracking inventory, supplies, tools and equipment from a phone, with item photos, folders, barcode and QR scanning and low-stock alerts. It's strong at organizing and counting. If you ship online orders every day, check how it handles bins and picking. ### What are the four main types of inventory? There's no single official list, but a common grouping uses four types: raw materials, work in progress, finished goods, and MRO supplies (maintenance, repair and operating items like tape and boxes). A Shopify brand that buys finished products tracks mostly finished goods, plus packaging and any kit components. ### Can you use QuickBooks for inventory management? For basic tracking, yes. Intuit lists inventory tracking in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced, with quantities, low stock alerts and purchase orders. Intuit's page doesn't describe bins, barcode scanning or picking, so if you need those, connect a WMS or an add-on. SKUSavvy's QuickBooks Online add-on is $50/month. ### What is the best inventory software for a small business? The one that matches your stage. One person and one room: a spreadsheet or a simple inventory app. One retail store: your POS inventory. Online orders shipped from your own shelves, with more than one person picking: a WMS that tracks bins. If you're on Shopify, that last one is what SKUSavvy is for. ### Can I run small business inventory from my phone? Yes. SKUSavvy runs in the browser on iPhone and Android phones and tablets, and the camera scans common barcodes. There's nothing to download from an app store; add it to your home screen if you like. ### Do I need a barcode scanner? Not to start. A phone camera works. A Bluetooth or USB scanner is faster once someone scans all day, and SKUSavvy works with standard keyboard-style (HID) scanners. ### Can I keep my existing barcodes? Yes. SKUSavvy imports the bin barcodes you already use, and product barcodes come in from Shopify. A barcode entered in Shopify syncs into SKUSavvy, and editing it in SKUSavvy updates it in Shopify. A barcode created first in SKUSavvy doesn't sync to Shopify. SKUSavvy doesn't issue GS1 UPC or EAN numbers. ### How long does setup take? Self-service setup usually takes one to two weeks. Guided onboarding usually takes two to four weeks, depending on SKU count, layout and how much data cleanup there is. ### Keep reading #### Warehouse Management Software The full SKUSavvy WMS for Shopify brands: bins, picking, purchasing and shipping in one system. [EXPLORE THE WMS](https://www.skusavvy.com/warehouse-management-software) #### Cloud Inventory Management Cloud inventory that reaches the warehouse floor: real-time Shopify sync, multi-location counts and bin-level locations. [SEE CLOUD INVENTORY](https://www.skusavvy.com/cloud-inventory-management) #### Best Inventory Label Maker Printer types compared for bin, product and shipping labels, plus the label sizes a Shopify warehouse needs. [COMPARE LABEL MAKERS](https://www.skusavvy.com/best-inventory-label-maker) ## Know Where Every Unit Is, Not Just How Many Start a 30-day trial, map a few bins and pick a real order on your phone.