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Typically when you think of invoice management software solutions, you only think about how they can help you get paid faster and how they can increase customer retention. Well this is in fact true as most solutions only focus on these features. In this article we’ll be looking at how an invoice management software can also help with made to order operations, which basically means off the shelf inventory management.

So what if your invoice management software would also let you create an estimate that would load chain select fields and manage your inventory? What does this mean? You can read more about it here: https://docs.gravityforms.com/creating-chained-selects/

An example would be for a manufacturer of car parts that requires their salesperson to have the ability to create estimates that would also manage inventory. But when the estimate is created it loads one fields after the other. So it would load the car type field, then the part type field, then the part #, then the quantity field, then the inventory field and finally the price. All the sales person would need to do is add all the line items and send the estimate to the customer for approval. Once approved it goes through a workflow until the invoice is sent and the customer pays. Alternatively, an invoice management software solution should have the ability to ask for a deposit payment once the estimate is converted.

So how is inventory managed? Well the system should allow for an import tool to import all products and inventory. Prior to creating any estimates, the current inventory amount is inputted and can be added to whenever new inventory comes in. Every time an estimate is created, the invoice management software would simply subtract the inventory amount from the total inventory. That’s it!

This is where InfoFlo Pay comes into play. It’s the only invoice management software that includes a workflow just like the one described above and it includes a customer portal so that the customer can view their accepted estimates, work orders, invoices and a statement. More than that, InfoFlo Pay includes the option of allowing the customer to create their own estimates/orders which is really efficient. To make it even easier, InfoFlo Pay can allow for the customer to re-order from the customer portal and optionally change the quantity amount which would also obviously change the price.

Now with all that, InfoFlo Pay also includes more advanced inventory management to ensure that inventory amounts are always correct. It does this in two ways. The first whenever an estimate is created, the inventory is subtracted from the total inventory. However, if an estimate is removed, the inventory is added back. Also, the InfoFlo Pay invoice management software also allows for work orders or production jobs to be sent back to estimate in case changes have to be made and will automatically update the inventory. The second way is that InfoFlo Pay includes inventory alerts whenever inventory levels reach a threshold so that estimates/orders aren’t created without enough inventory in place. This feature can be turned on or off.

I hope this article showcased how invoice management software solutions can also include made to order operations with inventory management while also offering invoice management software features to help customers get paid faster and increase efficiency.