A widespread challenge in small and medium-scale retail businesses is the inefficient management of inventory using manual registers or spreadsheet-based systems, leading to stock shortages, overstocking, and financial losses. Traditional inventory management approaches suffer from manual errors, lack of real-time updates, and limited reporting capabilities. This research aims to design and develop a comprehensive web-based Smart Inventory Management System that automates inventory operations using PHP and MySQL. The system implements role-based access control with three user roles: Administrator, Manager, and Cashier, ensuring secure and appropriate access to system features. Key functionalities include real-time stock updates, automated purchase and sales tracking, rule-based low stock and expiry alerts, sales analytics through data visualization, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. The system follows a modular architecture with separate modules for authentication, product management, inventory control, sales billing, analytics, and reporting. The methodology employs the Waterfall model for software development, encompassing requirement analysis, system design, database design, implementation, testing, and deployment. The system achieves 99% reliability in stock tracking accuracy and reduces manual data entry errors by approximately 85% compared to traditional spreadsheet-based methods.
S et al. (2026) studied this question.