Small Manufacturers Are Confident They’ll Grow in 2011

Small manufacturers are increasingly hopeful business will improve this year. Seventy-two percent of small manufacturers expect their revenue to increase in 2011, compared to 36 percent who thought that would happen six months ago, according to the Prime Advantage Group Outlook survey.

Just under half of the 75 manufacturing executives in this survey said they expect to hire the same number of employees they did in 2010, while just 3 percent expect to lay off employees this year.

Manufacturers have three main concerns that could hamper their ability to grow:

– Ninety-six percent worry about the high cost of raw materials.

– Fifty-two percent worry about inflation adding even more to their production costs.

– Thirty-seven percent worry about rising health care costs.

To combat these problems that threaten to hurt their bottom line, 65 percent of these small manufacturers are going to invest in new manufacturing tools this year. One tool that can help manufacturers keep costs down is QuickBooks manufacturing software.

QuickBooks manufacturing software is a combination of QuickBooks accounting software and manufacturing inventory software. QuickBooks lets businesses track all of their expenses and simplify the bookkeeping process. Manufacturing inventory software helps manufacturers track their inventory so they know how much they have on hand, when they should reorder and where products are located in their warehouses. This software can also be used to automatically generate work orders, bills of materials and manufacture orders.

When manufacturing inventory software integrates with QuickBooks, it saves even more time by letting manufacturers instantly update their accounting records when they make changes to their inventory levels. QuickBooks manufacturing software adds to employee efficiency and helps manufacturers make the most of their resources.

With any luck, this will continue to be a great year for manufacturers, large and small. It’s more likely to be if they use QuickBooks manufacturing software.