How to Optimize Inventory Management with Pharmacy Software
Inventory is one of, if not the biggest overhead in your independent pharmacy. Your pharmacy software should provide robust inventory management tools that help you minimize waste and optimize spend. Aside from detailed inventory reports, most retail pharmacy software systems offer additional features that help manage your inventory every single day. Options such as EDI and automatic ordering, easy to set reorder points, the ability to create multiple inventory categories, barcode scanning, and expiration date tracking are just a few of the many useful functions you can find in the best pharmacy software systems. It’s also important that your pharmacy management software communicates with your frontend point of sale system so that if a prescription sale is voided or returned, the pharmacy staff knows to return that inventory. Taking advantage of the inventory features built into your pharmacy computer system saves you both time and money.
Detailed inventory reports can help you control inventory levels in your pharmacy and avoid overspending. Most pharmacy software systems offer some level of custom reporting that allows you to create templates and run reports that can be printed or even downloaded. Not only can you generate basic inventory reports that show you current on hand quantities and cost, in Datascan’s pharmacy system you can analyze inventory needs through inventory forecasting reports that look at trends and fill history. These types of reports will help you avoid keeping unneeded inventory from sitting on your shelves, potentially going outdated, and make sure you custom order specific drugs only when they’re needed.
EDI, or electronic data interchange, connects your pharmacy management software to your wholesalers, streamlining your entire ordering process. By using EDI you can easily create purchase orders right in your pharmacy software and send them directly to your wholesalers. Orders can be created automatically by setting reorder points on drugs or by manually adding medications when you need them. Datascan’s smart inventory system even shops for you and makes suggestions to move items to another vendor’s PO when we see a lower acquisition cost. EDI also supports inventory updates by uploading your invoices directly into your pharmacy system. This not only updates your on-hand quantities, but also your acquisition costs, saving your staff time.
Barcode scanning helps ensure accuracy within your workflow, both from a filling and production standpoint and also inventory management. In order for your pharmacy system to reflect accurate inventory counts, your staff has to make sure that the NDC chosen during data entry is the same NDC chosen during dispensing. By instituting a barcoding system within your pharmacy software workflow, your staff is required to scan the product they’d like to dispense to confirm it matches the product entered at data entry. If the drug they’ve scanned is an exact match they can count and prepare the medication and send it to a pharmacist for verification, however, if they have a different NDC, the pharmacy software will have them either update the NDC in the system or rescan the correct item. This will ensure that inventory levels are adjusted for the correct NDC and your inventory is maintained with the utmost accuracy.
In the event a patient decides at pickup that they do not want to a prescription, it’s important that your cashier has an easy way to notify you that the prescription needs to be reversed and the medication needs to be put back into stock. A POS system that is fully integrated into your pharmacy management software makes managing returns and restocks simple. Datascan’s pharmacy software has a return queue that tracks and manages any prescriptions that need to be reversed and restocked. Some of the best pharmacy systems also generate return to stock labels to ensure compliance.
As your pharmacy aims to run efficiently and profitably, utilizing inventory management features within your pharmacy software system is essential. Mismanaging inventory can result in massive waste and financial losses within your independent pharmacy. Between accidental overordering to missed expiration dates, if you aren’t using your inventory tools, you are putting yourself at a major disadvantage. While most pharmacy systems provide some level of inventory tools within the software, the top pharmacy systems have robust inventory management utilities that save you time and money.
