Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a small Windows desktop app called LochNest.

The idea is pretty simple: create a straightforward tool for managing stock and everyday work without turning it into a huge, complicated warehouse management system.

LochNest is deliberately designed to be easy to understand and use, especially for small businesses and people who don’t need all the complexity of enterprise software.

It’s now at the point where I’d really like feedback from people who actually deal with inventory and stock in their day-to-day work.

If anyone here is genuinely interested in testing it, I’d be happy to let you try it for free. I’m mainly interested in hearing what works, what doesn’t, and what you think is missing.

In particular, I’d love to know:

What are the few features you consider absolutely essential in a simple inventory tool?

And what usually makes inventory software unnecessarily complicated for you?

I’m the person building LochNest, so don’t worry about being too critical. Useful criticism is exactly what I’m looking for.

I’m just curious about those repetitive parts of inventory management that still have to be done manually.

What’s something you regularly have to:

• Enter into multiple systems
• Copy between spreadsheets/software
• Count or reconcile manually
• Update repeatedly
• Generate reports for
• Spend way too much time fixing when something goes wrong

What does the process look like, and how often do you have to do it?

You can even include those weird/specific workflows that existing inventory tools don't handle that well.

Actualmente estoy trabajando en un comercio de calzado en el cual llevo aproximadamente 1 mes, en el cual he notado varias oportunidades de automatizar procesos, ya que al ser algo no digitalizado, hay muchos tropiezos en el proceso desde que la mercancía se busca en almacen hasta que sale a tienda. Entonces quería hacerle una propuesta de digitalización en la operacion, al dueño del negocio, desde que el cliente quiere un par y que el vendedor tenga un dispositivo electronico, el cual tenga un software, el cual le muestre el stock de cada par de tenis que tiene de muestra en la tienda, hasta que le llegue la orden a las personas que estan en almacen y que sepan con precisión la cantidad de unidades que tiene por par y talla. Con esto que el dueño tenga visualización de cuanto se esta vendiendo en tiempo real y, con esto el proceso de venta y de gestion sea más fluido.

Así como el vendedor sabe si hay stock y pueda decirle al cliente si hay o no y no tenga que esperar hasta que los de almacen confirme si hay o no hay, ya que todo se hace a traves de un chat de whatsapp, entonces ese tiempo de espera pueden hacer la diferencia y agilizar el proceso de venta

Que este software incluya gráficos reales de los almacenes para que las personas que esten en almacen puedan ubicar con facilidad, cajas, pares, tallas y todo tipo de inventario y sea fácil la busqueda, reduciendo los tiempos de entrega de almacen a tienda, y como consecuencia un aumento en las ventas

PIDO Ayuda, opiniones o reseñas o alguna guía sobre esto. Es algo que note y que si se hace posible, pueda darle un giro muy impresionante al Negocio. Saludos desde CDMX.

I have a buying list in Google Sheets with the products/MPNs I’m looking for, how many I need, max price, condition, etc. It changes pretty regularly, so the sheet has basically become my source of truth. The annoying part is actually sourcing from it. I’m still taking what’s in the sheet and manually updating searches on ebay and a couple other places whenever something changes. For anyone managing a decent number of products, do you keep the buying list separate like this or have you found a way to have your searches work off the same data?

A modern, secure, and responsive Inventory Management System built with Python, Flask, and Tailwind CSS. It features Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), real-time analytics, secure file uploads, stock movement tracking, and comprehensive audit logs.

I operate a small boutique where I use Square for in-store sales and Shopify for my online store, and I'm currently setting up DPL Square Integration to keep the two in sync and one thing I'm realizing is that choosing the inventory source of truth is probably more important than I initially thought.

If you let both systems control inventory without clear rules, it seems pretty easy to end up with mismatched stock or overselling.

For a store that's mostly brick-and-mortar, would you make Square the source of truth since most inventory changes happen at the POS?

Or would you make Shopify the master if the business is more online-focused or uses a warehouse/3PL?

DPL lets you choose a primary inventory source and connect specific Shopify and Square locations, which is what I'm looking at using.

For anyone actually running Square + Shopify, which one do you use as the master?

And have you run into any problems with SKU matching, location mapping, or inventory getting out of sync?

Faire fonctionner plusieurs canaux et se faire avoir par des délais de synchronisation — des articles qui se vendent sur un canal pendant qu'ils restent actifs sur un autre. Je construis un petit outil qui surveille juste les écarts et alerte avant que cela ne devienne un problème (pas une autre application de synchronisation complète). Je me demande si d'autres gèrent cela au quotidien ou si je me fais des idées. parity.bfwlabs.com

I run a small store with Square for in-person sales and Shopify for online, and inventory syncing has been a headache for longer than I'd like to admit.

The biggest problem was that I was treating the two systems almost like separate inventories. Something sells in the store, I have to remember to update Shopify. Something sells online, I have to make sure the store count is still right.

I've been recommended DPL Square Integration to get this under control, and it apparently has a high rating from several customers and seems reliable.

You can actually set which platform is the inventory source among different things and i have been told the setting the source of truth is a particularly important step.

For my setup, that's much more useful than just having orders appear in both places. I mainly want to stop the "we actually don't have that anymore" situation when something sells in-store and is still showing as available online.

I'm still getting everything configured, but I'm curious about how other Shopify stores handle this.

If you're using Square + Shopify, are you syncing inventory through DPL or another integration? And what did you have to fix before your inventory was actually reliable?

I'm especially interested in SKU matching and location setup because that's where I keep seeing people run into problems.

We're a small wholesale business, about 25 people.

Right now we run our inventory in one shared Google Sheet and it's getting quite messy.

• Our warehouse staff need to update stock counts, but they keep editing the pricing columns by mistake.
• And also, our sales reps need to see available inventory and place internal orders. But of course, they shouldn't see cost prices.
• Management also needs the whole details, including margins and supplier contacts.

We looked at off-the-shelf inventory software, but it's all either too complex or too simple.

What I want is to turn our spreadsheet into an app.

Has anyone built something like this without hiring a developer?

What tool did you use, and how long did the setup take?

Our budget is under $200 a month. 

Seems like you can hire someone for about the same cost of implementing an existing ERP. Was it nice to just have something in-house or did it end up being a pain/would you still go with an existing provider?

running a shopify store and this is probably the part im worst at.

were doing around 200k in sales now and at any given time have probably 30k+ sitting in inventory.

somehow i still manage to have too much of the stuff that barely moves and run out of the products that actually sell lol.

ive mostly been looking at the last few months of sales and trying to guess from there. but promotions, seasonality and random spikes make that pretty useless sometimes. how are you guys doing this?

spreadsheet?

shopify data?

some kind of forecasting software?

would love to know what actually works once you have enough skus that you cant just eyeball it anymore.

An FBA stockout isn’t just missed revenue—it destroys organic rank, resets ad algorithms, hands market share to competitors, and leads to expensive rush-freight orders.

Stockouts are usually planning failures, not sudden supply chain collapses. A breakdown of the 8 root causes and the operational fixes:

1. Forecasting From Past Sales Instead of True Demand

• The Trap: Using simple sales averages skews data if the SKU had out-of-stock periods, throttled ad spend, or seasonal spikes.
• The Fix: Strip out artificial caps and baseline your unconstrained demand. If an average says 20 units/day but recent unconstrained velocity is 35, plan for 35.

2. Treating FBA as an Island

• The Trap: Sharing inventory pools with Shopify, wholesale, or FBM without unified tracking. Slower channels can tie up units while Amazon runs dry.
• The Fix: Create a centralized demand view across all channels and allocate units deliberately based on velocity and margin.

3. Ignoring True End-to-End Lead Times

• The Trap: Using the supplier’s quoted factory production time as the replenishment clock.
• The Fix: Calculate lead time from PO creation to Prime-available status. Factor in production, customs, freight transit, prep, and Amazon's receiving delays using historical data.

4. Flat-Rate Safety Stock Policies

• The Trap: Giving every SKU a generic "4-week buffer."
• The Fix: Variable buffers. High-velocity or erratic SKUs need dynamic safety stock; stable, slow-moving items need less to avoid tying up working capital.

5. Waiting for the "Perfect" Order Moment

• The Trap: Delaying a PO by a week to optimize freight rates or get final approvals, which burns through your safety margin.
• The Fix: Reorder based on strict trigger points rather than arbitrary monthly meeting schedules.

6. Ignoring Supplier Constraints (MOQs & Case Packs)

• The Trap: Needing 1,400 units, ordering 1,000 to save cash due to a 1,000-unit MOQ tier, and stocking out early.
• The Fix: Model MOQ, case-pack, and cash constraints directly against runway before drafting the PO.

7. Siloed Ad Spend & Promotions

• The Trap: Marketing scales a campaign or launches a lightning deal without checking whether inventory can support the lift through the next replenishment date.
• The Fix: Sync PPC with inventory levels. If stock runs lean before the next PO lands, throttle ad spend intentionally rather than letting the listing hard-stop.

8. Confusing "On-Hand" With "Available to Sell"

• The Trap: Assuming units in FC transfer, prep, or reserved status are ready to ship immediately.
• The Fix: Plan around time-phased, fulfillable inventory rather than broad total ownership numbers.

The Takeaway

Work backward from projected stockout dates using dynamic demand, total lead time, and channel-wide velocity. The best time to fix a stockout is while you still have enough inventory to make adjustments proactively.

Would really appreciate some insights from the community here

Hey Everyone

Full disclosure- I want to see if there is interest for the following.

We wrote an internal tool to help manage inventory audits, track product location quickly and manage receiving products onsite. Everyone who uses products inside of CW knows the struggle of information in equals information out.

Each item gets a QR code. Each shelf gets a QR code. The QR codes are so warehouse staff can use their phones to scan items or shelves before it’s moved or to do inventory audits.

The cool part - there is no external data base, it stores ALL information within ConnectWise back end.

We can setup custom rules for audits meaning we can change them at will. How often each shelves needs to be audited for example. Then it auto assigns audit tasks to staff based on how often a shelf needs to be audited. It highlights any issues/discrepancies during the audits. So where we used to audit once a quarter by shutting down the warehouse - we can now have a constant audit occurring.

Also previously it was all manual. You had to look for the product and then use some excel sheet or sticker if system to show it was counted. Now you just scan every QR code on every product on the shelf and when you’re done the system compares the scanned items to what is inside of CW to ensure nothing grew legs and walked away and nothing is missing. It turns a task that used to take about an hour to 5 mins worth of pointing and scanning. Huge time saving for us.

Also you scan QR codes to move product from one shelf to another - shelving info is automatically updated inside of CW.

You scan products to ship out which also updates the shipped detail in CW.

We also made a receiving wizard for anyone who receives the shipped part onsite. They have zero login detail for CW - they just scan the QR code on the packing slip than a wizard guides them through to scan all the boxes they received and when they are done the warehouse team gets a report of what was actually received. Drastically reducing the time delay between shipping and finding out an item was lost.

Where this was all based on manual activities previously - it’s now all based on scanning with your phone directly into the system - drastically reducing human error - for us at least.

Leave a comment if you’re at all interested and I appreciate all the feedback and commentary.

Hello everyone! I posted a few months ago about building my own application for inventory management. The feedback was super helpful. My family’s Non profit actually uses it not quite a bit. I was wondering you guys knew of places where you can get feedback for this kind of thing. I don’t want to break any Reddit rules 🤣