Warehouse Management (WMS) Software
Get the best warehouse management (WMS) software for your business. Compare product reviews, pricing below. Read our buyer’s guide for more help.
The best warehouse management systems will vary depending on your needs. Because every warehousing operation is different, it’s important to evaluate the features of different WMS platforms to determine the solution that best meets your needs. To give you a small idea of what to expect from a WMS software package, here are some of today’s popular warehouse solutions:
HighJump WMS provides the perfect mix of order management and workload balancing. Orders are downloaded from your ERP, EDI, or eCommerce solution. Once allocated, the system will determine if the correct inventory is the right pick bins. Depending on product availability, the system may or may not handle a replenishment process.
HighJump WMS will help you improve labor productivity, reduce touches, and found space savings you didn’t realize you had the potential for. This is made possible through supply chain analytics, integrated shipping, retail and eCommerce readiness, and EDI/ASN compliance.
Offering a wide range of warehouse systems, HighJump WMS can be put into almost any scenario. This includes warehouse automation control, yard management, multi-client operations (3PL), and labor management. This helps make it one of the best overall WMS software available today.
The Cloud-based Odoo , formerly OpenERP, is a free inventory control and warehouse management software. With a full suite of business apps, this WMS provides a smooth, friendly user experience. Notably, Odoo is focused on decreasing process times, automating transactions, reducing stock levels and getting complete traceability on all operations.
Fishbowl Inventory is a WMS for growing companies which previously relied on QuickBooks Inventory but found its control capabilities are no longer sufficient for their inventory control needs. This might occur due to expanding to multiple locations, needing wireless barcoding, or increasing the number of products. When a company integrates their current package of QuickBooks (Pro, Premier or Enterprise) with Fishbowl Inventory, Fishbowl will take over all the inventory control functions from QuickBooks.
NetSuite ERP, while primarily an ERP solution, has an advanced warehouse management module for inbound and outbound logistics management. The WMS features real-time inventory updates along with product RFID tracking. Additionally, this tool handles warehouse space management and wave planning.
The solution has strong put-away and picking capabilities that blend into task management and returns authorization receipt and cycle count plans. NetSuite WMS helps optimize your day to day warehouse operations while minimizing handling costs.
The biggest benefit of NetSuite WMS is the integration it offers with the baseline NetSuite ERP. It’s important to note that NetSuite WMS module is different from the simple inventory management capabilities offered by NetSuite (such as multi-location inventory, bin tracking, and cycle counting). Companies looking to have a truly integrated ERP/WMS setup can take comfort knowing that you won’t be facing any integration issues when it comes to a connected ERP and WMS.
Flamesoft Warehouse Management Solutions provides cloud-based WMS software focused on simplicity, efficiency, and automation. Its goal is to eliminate inefficient warehouse processes, reducing data entry and the overall burden placed on warehouse operations. Through optimized task management, warehouse actions, and customer request handling, employees can be freed up to perform more valuable tasks. Flamesoft also makes it possible to create branded customer portals and offer clients web access for increased inventory visibility and support.
Warehouse Insight is an add-on to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for anyone looking for mobile device integration and barcode scanning. Using hand-held devices, you can perform warehouse functions from the warehous floor all in real-time.
There are 25 apps to streamline your operation, including the Inquiry app to view details and information such as location and quantity about specific warehouse items. The inventory count app provides a better method for providing full physical inventory counts and cycle counts, complete with reconciliation tools. Finally, licensing lets users group similar items onto pallets and identify them with a single barcode. Then it can be moved to be staged for production or get ready for shipping.
Warehouse Management (WMS) Software Buyer’s Guide
Warehouses operate at the center of fulfillment or logistics companies along multi-echelon supply chains. When a warehouse functions like a well-oiled machine, goods can be manufactured in a timely manner and distributed anywhere throughout the world. But in order to make a warehouse run at its maximum efficiency, key management systems must be in place to control and maintain inventory, distribution, and fulfillment in real-time.
Warehouse management software (WMS) offers an easy to use, comprehensive suite of capabilities built specifically to make complex warehouse operations, well, more manageable.
This guide will provide you with information on the following topics:
What is Warehouse Management Software (WMS)?
Warehouse management software (sometimes referred to as WMS software) makes it possible to manage and coordinate inventory and actions throughout a warehouse or distribution center. In order to oversee warehouse operations, WMS software gives warehouse managers powerful tools to design a warehouse’s workflow, control stock, schedule labor, generate bills, analyze reports, and coordinate with shipping yards and docks.
Warehouse management systems can be offered as part of fully-integrated distribution software or supply chain management systems. More commonly, WMS software is sold as a stand-alone. Regardless, this software makes it possible for managers and laborers to track inventory on the warehouse floor.
The products in your stock can be logged, received, put away, picked-and-packed, shipped, and reported upon by this software. Not only does WMS automate these complex tasks, it helps control costs by ensuring items get to the correct place at the lowest possible price.
With the right WMS software, a warehouse can improve overall customer satisfaction and delivery times through improved operational efficiency. Additionally, these solutions include integrated management systems for third party warehouses (3PL warehouses) which are not directly controlled by your company but impact your supply chain.
Benefits of Warehouse Management Software
The best WMS software makes it possible for a warehouse to operate at its maximum efficiency. If you’re determining the best software solution for your warehouse, be on the lookout for some key benefits offered by most top WMS software suites:
| Benefits | Description |
|---|---|
| Higher accuracy of order fulfillment | For an optimized omnichannel experience, WMS software makes order management possible through any sales channel. Through labor and inventory tracking, it’s possible to carry out fulfillment tasks with greater speed and precision. The result is a solution that makes it easier and faster for customers to receive your goods, ensuring fewer missed shipments and customer chargebacks. |
| Optimized picking and shipping | Identify what needs to be provisioned and where it’s located. Comprehensive picking tools can define steps for preparing, packaging, and provisioning goods. Specific instructions can be set to optimize moves and transfers to help ensure efficiency. |
| Faster delivery times | Streamlined warehouse operations and increased transparency make it possible to speed up delivery. As soon as inventory has been packed, invoices and packing lists can be automatically generated, and WMS software can inform other locations about pending deliveries through advanced shipment notifications. |
| Efficient labor management | Labor management tools make it possible to measure the efficiency of warehouse employees through key performance indicators (KPIs), ensuring tasks are being carried out at the speed of business. Combined with lot zoning and task allocation, employee workflows can be streamlined in order to define and carry out their work. WMS software can also track labor expenses and minimize employee theft. |
| Increased visibility of an order’s status | With WMS software, inventory and order status can be tracked at nearly 100 percent accuracy. Thanks to automated data collection through barcoding or radio frequency identification (RFID) scanning, users can follow the status of their orders, providing peace-of-mind throughout the process. This is particularly valuable for tracking products through 3PL warehouses. |
| Optimized storage space | WMS software makes it possible to design a warehouse’s workflow, picking logic, and bin slotting. This ensures space is being used properly and can account for variances like seasonality. |
| Minimized inventory movement | Because of the sheer scale of a warehouse operation, properly managing inventory is a crucial aspect of WMS software. Though increased warehouse visibility and accuracy, inventory can be tracked and placed in its proper location, ensuring goods are where they need to be when they’re needed. Minimizing the movement of inventory can help cut costs and enable warehouse workers to carry out their work. |
| Improved Yard & Dock Productivity | Manage the movement of trucks as the come and go from yards or loading docks. Real-time tracking lets you see where the trucks or trailers are located at that moment, allowing employees to cut down on loading and unloading times. Cross-docking can also be managed with some WMS solutions to cut down on storage time. In third-party cross-docking, products are unloaded from incoming trucks directly onto outbound trucks. |
What WMS Does Your Business Need?
Choosing the right WMS software for your warehouse depends on the size and structure of your warehouse operations. It’s important to fully understand your warehousing and supply chain management needs in order to determine the correct solution:
- Small businesses can benefit from web-based WMS software for small companies, placing warehousing operations in a solution that’s ready to go out-of-the-box. Most cloud-based WMS software platforms provide the flexibility to customize the experience as needed.
- Medium-sized businesses often outgrow manual or simple warehouse processes, requiring WMS software that can better assist and provide additional flexibility in order to track inventory and ship goods with greater accuracy.
- eCommerce businesses often need accurate inventory information to prevent overselling products. Many eCommerce companies work through 3PL warehouses and need WMS with inventory tracking which can be integrated with third party logistics.
- Large warehouses inventory and warehouse management tools often deal with complex tracking requirements like serial numbers and the need for retail compliance laboring. When a warehouse also uses transportation management software (TMS) or legacy solutions, it is important to choose WMS software that fully integrates with existing operations set by a 3PL warehouse manager or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
Warehouse Order Picking Methods
Plenty of order picking methods are available that can optimize your inventory process. Some of the most common include:
- Discrete Picking
- Batch Picking
- Zone Picking
- Wave and Hybrid Picking
Pain Points Solved With Warehouse Management Software
Warehouse managers choose WMS software to alleviate common warehouse pain points like:
- Integration with an existing logistics operation. Depending on the scale of the operation, an improved WMS software package may need to work well with transportation management systems or order fulfillment applications already in use.
- Ease of use. Because WMS software can offer complex functionality, it’s important that solutions offer users clear interfaces that are easy to understand. Solutions that workers can adapt to are crucial to maximizing overall efficiency.
Recent Trends in Warehouse Management Software
The development of WMS software keeps up with evolving market trends to ensure warehouses have all the capabilities users demand:
- 3/4ths of WMS buyers want barcoding. Our recent Warehouse Management Software Buyer Trends report found that barcoding was far and away the most-used scanning tech in warehouses. It also found that over half of WMS buyers are looking for a system that can manage multiple warehouses.
- Mobile and cloud-based solutions. Whether it’s for a brand new warehousing operation or running atop a legacy installation, cloud-based software makes it easy to manage inventory through web-based platforms. With the help of mobile devices like barcode scanners, warehouses can take greater control over their tasks.
- Omnichannel capabilities. The advent of omnichannel retail has made it possible for customers to purchase and receive goods from anywhere in the world. As warehousing needs become more complex as customers demand greater accuracy and transparency throughout the shipping process, it’s important for WMS software to offer capabilities to meet those needs.
Warehouse Management Software Pricing Guide
The cost of warehouse management software will differ based on a number of factors, including deployment method (on-premise versus the cloud), number of users, level of support included, any additional services provided by their vendor.
Basic WMS Costs
As WMS is generally a more complex and more involved method of inventory management software, it will generally be more expensive than most inventory control options. You shouldn’t expect to find a WMS solution that is at or near the price of an inventory management system.
WMS systems can start at subscription-based pricing models or perhaps have bulk pricing that lets you purchase users in tiers. Software costs for anything but basic WMS functionality would average between $3,000 and $4,500 per concurrent user for on-premise, with professional services being between 75% to 100% of the software costs, plus between $5,000 to $25,000 for integrations into ERP systems.
Radio Frequency ID (RFID) Costs
Businesses clamor for the newest technologies, such as RFID tracking in WMS options. And RFID does have many beneficial uses in today’s age. RFID driven processes generally have to do with asset management at multiple locations in order to reduce mistakes along the supply chain. However, businesses tend to forget about the expense of hardware when desiring to implement a WMS with RFID technology.
WMS vendors feel RFID will be slow to gain traction in standard warehousing or picking and packing due to high cost of entry and ongoing costs. A lot goes into the cost of each individual RFID tag more than printing out a simple barcode. Industry-leading hardware scanners can cost from $2,500 up to $4,000 each. Combined with tagging, companies will need to be prepared to spend upwards of $50,000 for the hardware of a small 5-user system.
Most RFID solutions are an additive cost exercise. In order to utilize features like RFID tracking, your warehouse will require the use of RFID chips and scanners that can read the tags themselves. Overall, RFID hardware is more expensive than what most WMS companies offer in terms of the cost of the software alone.
Warehouse Management Software Integrations
Warehouse management systems are data intensive software suites. In a live environment, data moves in and out of the WMS software in real-time. The data can then be used in multiple ways:
- Order entry software passes information on what goods need to be sent to which customer.
- The warehouse communicates with the purchasing department.
- Delivery instructions may need to be sent to logistics or supply chain management (SCM) software.
Because of the cross-functional movement of data, ERP providers like SAP, Epicor, and NetSuite offer warehouse management software as a component of the system. Still, stand-alone WMS systems are popular as well. Not every company can switch its ERP system to one including WMS functionality. Also, unique functional requirements may be better served by a particular stand-alone WMS.
Best Software to Integrate with WMS
If you need to track, manage, and identify other problems in your supply chain, consider looking into these related software categories:
- Supply Chain Management Software: Manages the flow of goods and services for manufacturers, logistics companies, distributors & suppliers, and retailers
- Inventory Control Software: Tracks information about items or assets your company stores, builds, buys, or sells. If you don’t need to optimize picking methods, inventory control software will be a more affordable option.
- Procurement Software: Tracks order information including vendors, quantities, item or service purchased, payment terms, costs, and delivery timeframes.