Inventory Planner Essentials empowers you to make the right purchasing decisions by automatically calculating the forecast for each variant and creating a “To order” recommendation. Understanding how this figure is determined will let you take control and get the most accurate purchase recommendations for your business.
How to find these recommendations
The default view in the Purchase screen shows all your replenishable variants, sorted to show the most profitable replenishments at the top.
If you’re looking for the highest priority items to purchase, the “Stockout risk” view shows variants that must be ordered in the next 7 days to prevent running out of inventory.
Alternatively, you might prefer to prioritize your purchasing budget on products that bring in the most revenue. The “Bestsellers” view uses ABC Class analysis to show the most revenue-generating products.
Purchase recommendations are based on the forecast which is updated daily, without any action required from you. The recommendations update immediately when any configuration is updated, such as lead times or days of stock, and also when purchase orders are created.
If you’re unsure of how often to review the recommendations, daily is often best. You can also receive email notifications to make this more efficient - learn more about alerts here.
Understanding the recommendations
Inventory Planner Essentials has two key recommendations:
The Purchase date is the last date to place an order to avoid running out of stock and is based on current inventory levels and vendor lead times.
To order is the quantity you need to order to meet forecasted demand during the lead time and days of stock, i.e. the requirement, adjusted to meet the vendor’s MOQ.
To help you make the best purchasing decision, the report includes Requirement profit. This metric is the expected profit from the sale of the required stock.
Five actions to improve purchase recommendations
1. Import POs
When you first start using Inventory Planner Essentials, you should import any POs that have been placed with your supplier but haven't yet been received. Those orders will be counted as “On order” so we don’t suggest reordering more than you need.
2. Configure variant MOQs
You can set MOQs for variants so that the quantity added to a purchase order meets your vendor’s minimum requirement. These are specific to each vendor, so make sure you filter the Purchase screen by vendor to see the right recommendations.
3. Exclude variants you don’t need to replenish
You may have active products in your Shopify catalog that you don’t want to keep in stock - for example, items that are being discontinued or those that are exclusively dropshipped to your customers. These variants can be excluded from forecasting, purchasing and low stock alerts.
4. Refine your lead times and days of stock
New variants are assigned your default lead time and days of stock. You can set these defaults in Account, in the Settings tab.
You can also set a default lead time and days of stock against each vendor based on how long it takes them to ship orders and how often you want to raise POs. These defaults can then be applied to all variants assigned to the vendor.
For even finer control, you can override the values for each variant in the Purchase screen.
5. Adjust your forecast
Purchase recommendations are most accurate when the forecast is tailored to your future plans. For example, if a marketing campaign is about to launch, you may need to adjust the forecast accordingly. Read our guide on how to get started with great demand planning here.