Simplify your back-to-school inventory management

Material tracking and loan management shouldn’t be cumbersome, time-consuming tasks that encroach on all your other projects. Not to mention that using old, manual methods predisposes you to wasted time and mistakes.

Back-to-school time is the best time to review your inventory management from top to bottom. Because you don’t want to go through another full year like this, here’s what you can do to keep your storekeepers, teachers AND students happy.

Say yes to asset management software

Managing equipment receipts and payments on spreadsheets (Excel or paper) has its limits in terms of efficiency and speed. The more equipment you have to manage, the more you’ll notice losses, errors and nonsensical inventories.

To avoid these errors, the solution is inventory and loan management software. This change can be perceived as optional and costly by management, whereas it can generate profitable benefits (monetary and time).

Choose the right inventory management software

There are a number of inventory management software packages on the market, but many of them are not suitable for managing school equipment loans.

The first point to check is the software’s simplicity, since this will enable all those who use it to be productive. Next, you’ll need to check that the software has all the features you need.

Some features you should have :

• Online reservations by students.
• Block student loans.
• Possibility of scheduling equipment reservations in advance according to a certain frequency.
• Generate your own barcodes per asset.
• Grouping of equipment in the same kit.
• Reservation calendar.
• Loan reports.

Prepare for back-to-school with Hector

Hector is an equipment rental management software solution that has been implemented in a number of schools and educational establishments. For example, the Cégep de Jonquière has opted for our online reservation system.

« Hector’s open system has made all the difference for us! Students can now book their equipment online in advance, and this has improved things enormously. »

Jean-François Potvin

Practical technician

Our software solution is so flexible that you choose which assets you want to track. By opting for software like ours, you can be sure of maintaining rigorous tracking of your assets on loan or allocated to your facility’s personnel.

Hector can also track the depreciation of your assets for you. Our tool calculates the lifespan of equipment available for rental using various factors such as number of outings, breakdowns, estimated lifespan, etc. The application notifies you when it’s time to change the asset in question. A far cry from an Excel spreadsheet!

Implement your new process with help

Although Hector software is easy to implement, our team can help you get off to a good start right away.

The more assets you have, the harder it is to know how to get organized. That’s why a leading Montreal school asked us to help them implement Hector. Here’s how we do it.

1. Analysis of current processes

We come to your premises to analyze the situation and talk to your staff about their routine. Then we adapt the software to their reality. In this way, we establish the main stages (reservation, preparation of equipment, loan of equipment, return of equipment, restocking, etc.) of your process in the Hector software.

2. Definition of the structure to be set up

We define the right structure for your infrastructure. Do you have several stores in several cities? Or several departments? This is also where we organize items, assets with attributes and reservation settings.

3. Environment setup

Once the application and database have been installed, we configure the settings we planned in the previous step.

4. Training

To ensure that everyone is comfortable using Hector software, we take the time to train administrators, staff and even students.

5. Follow-up and implementation report

It’s not over yet! Implementing inventory and loaner software requires continuous improvement. By using the tool, staff may realize that another function is needed. Once we’ve left the site, we keep in touch with the schools to ensure that the software implementation continues to run smoothly.

Ready for an easier back-to-school experience? You can even start a free 15-day trial to discover the benefits of Hector. To discuss personalized support, please use our contact form to make an appointment!