Which software to manage your inventory?

The price comes down to the number of people who handle stock. For 5 people: Monstock Essential €14.90 plus 4 × €9.90, i.e. €54.50 excl. VAT per month prepaid; Stockpit Smart 5 × €39, i.e. €195 excl. VAT per month; Zoho Inventory Standard €29 per month plus 3 extra users at €7.50; DoliCloud Basic 5 × €14, i.e. €70 excl. VAT; Erplain €59 plus 4 × €14, i.e. €115 excl. VAT; Odoo with the Inventory app alone, €0 (prices checked on 1 November 2026). A custom extension costs €2,500 to €7,000 paid once, a complete tool €5,000 to €15,000 most of the time, up to €25,000 with several warehouses and specific flows, then €100 to €300 per month for maintenance.

Yes, with precise limits. Odoo Inventory is free with unlimited users as long as you use a single Odoo app. Zoho Inventory has a free plan limited to 1 user, 2 warehouses and 50 orders per month. Sortly offers 100 items for 1 user. Dolibarr is open-source software, free if you install and host it yourself. To start without software, the cycle count sheet and goods receipt note on this page (PDF and Excel) keep a small stock up to date.

Not for internal tracking. A GS1 code (GTIN) is only needed to sell through retail chains or marketplaces, and GS1 France charges a membership: for a turnover up to €50,000, a yearly fee of €104 excl. VAT plus a joining fee (2026 prices). To find, issue or count your items, QR labels generated by the tool and read with the phone cost €0 per label, as in StockPME. Watch the plans: Sortly charges for QR labels from $24 per month, Zoho only generates barcodes on Premium (€129), Dolibarr needs an external module for the scanner.

Not quite. The French Commercial Code (art. L123-12) requires checking the existence and value of stock by a physical count at least once every twelve months. Cycle counting (one area or one class of items counted every week or every month) is accepted when the software keeps a reliable perpetual inventory, provided every item has been counted at least once in the year. The ABC method (A items every month, B every quarter, C every half-year) is common practice, not a rule. The differences found are used first to correct the stock and to find the cause: breakage, theft, an issue or a transfer not recorded.

A micro-entrepreneur may skip annual accounts (French Commercial Code, art. L123-28), so no accounting stock count is required. If their main activity is selling goods, supplies or foodstuffs, they must however keep a yearly summary register of purchases, kept with the supporting documents for 10 years. Counting stock remains the only way to know what you have and what you have lost; a tool that records every purchase produces this register with nothing retyped.

By treating the van as a warehouse in its own right: items are transferred from the storeroom in the morning, what goes out on site or at the customer’s is scanned, and the rest is counted on return. The software then shows what is left in each vehicle and prepares the restock. Check the plan before signing: Zoho Inventory is limited to 2 warehouses up to the Standard plan, Stockpit only handles several storage locations from Smart with Pennylane or Sellsy (a Storage locations plan at $9 exists with QuickBooks), Odoo and Dolibarr handle several warehouses from the start. In StockPME, every transfer between locations or warehouses is tracked.

Take them off sale the day before: offering a product the day after its use-by date is forbidden in France, with a €1,500 fine per product. A product past its best-before date (DDM) may still be sold. For foodstuffs, the lot mark (preceded by “L”) and the date are tracked line by line, and in a recall the company declares the product on the dedicated government website and keeps a figures-based record of the products withdrawn (French Consumer Code, art. L423-3). Suitable software issues the oldest lots first, blocks the sale at the date limit and records the issue as “expired”, with its value.

The invoice states the date of the sale, that is the actual day of delivery, the delivery address when it differs from the billing address, the nature of the transaction (supply of goods, service or both) and, for business customers, the customer’s SIREN number. Every French company has received e-invoices since 1 September 2026, small businesses and micro-enterprises will have to issue them from 1 September 2027, with a €50 fine per non-electronic invoice. Your tool’s delivery note must therefore carry the real date and address, and match the invoice, which stays in your invoicing software.

Work equipment listed by ministerial order (lifting equipment, machinery, scaffolding…) undergoes general periodic inspections whose results are recorded in the safety register (French Labour Code, art. R4323-23 and R4323-25); for lifting equipment, the interval is 12 months. The INRS institute notes that in practice these inspections are carried out by the rental company, the user checking that the reports are provided. A sheet per piece of equipment with the date of the last inspection, the next due date and the report attached, and a block on issue when the date has passed, keep uninspected equipment from going out.

In France, every business that sells second-hand movable goods (consignment, refurbished) keeps a register of movable goods, known as the “livre de police”, one per establishment: on paper, numbered and initialled, or in electronic form compliant with ISO 14641-1 with the data kept for 10 years. It describes each item and its seller, day by day. Keeping no register is punishable by 6 months’ imprisonment and a €30,000 fine. Inventory software that records the origin of each receipt can produce this register, provided it follows the legal format.

Yes. If your file or your software exports your items, quantities per warehouse, suppliers and history to Excel or CSV, I import them into the new tool; it is planned in the quote, and the first count serves as a reliable starting point. Check this export option before signing with a publisher.