Inventory replenishment: what to reorder and how much

Help center / Stock and sales

Replenishment suggestions use your recorded sales and current stock to flag which products to reorder and how many units to buy. Set three numbers once for the business, then read the list each time you review stock.

Set your rules

Replenishment settings apply to the whole business: supplier lead time in days, safety days, and the days between your stock reviews.

1. Open Sales & stats and choose Replenishment settings.
2. Enter the lead time in days, the Safety buffer in days, and the Time between stock reviews in days. A new business starts at 7, 3 and 7.
3. Save, then pick the store and a sales window of 7, 30 or 90 days.
4. Read the product list. Products that need replenishment come first, then bestsellers by units sold.
5. For each flagged product, check the units held elsewhere, then use Manage stock to open its inventory and transfer them, or place an order with your supplier.

How a suggestion is worked out

• Reorder when stock on hand is at or below the daily sales rate × (lead time + safety days).
• The suggested quantity tops stock up to the daily sales rate × (lead time + safety days + review days), rounded up.
• Units held at other locations are shown, so you can transfer before you buy.

The daily sales rate is units sold in the window divided by the number of days in it. A product is only flagged when its stock has been counted, it is still in the catalog, and it sold at least one unit in the window. Otherwise its status reads Count stock, No sales or Archived. A product with enough stock reads Covered.

How to calculate average daily sales

Add up the units sold over the window and divide by the days in the window, counting days with no sales. Forty-five units over 30 days is 1.5 a day, whether the sales came evenly or in one busy weekend. A 7-day window reacts fast to change; a 90-day window smooths out one-off spikes.

How to calculate reorder quantity

headoffis uses a simple replenishment formula. Multiply the daily rate by lead time plus safety days plus review days to get a target, round it up to a whole unit, and subtract the stock on hand.

This is a worked example, not real data. A product sells 45 units in 30 days, so 1.5 a day. Lead time is 7 days and safety days are 3.

1. Trigger: 1.5 × (7 + 3) = 15 units. Stock on hand is 12, which is at or below 15, so the product is flagged.
2. Target: 1.5 × (7 + 3 + 7) = 25.5, rounded up to 26.
3. Suggestion: 26 − 12 = 14 units.

If another location holds 10 units of the same product, transferring them first leaves 4 to buy.

What the three settings mean

• Lead time: the days from placing an order to having the stock on your shelf. Measure it from your last few deliveries, not from the supplier's quote.
• Safety days: extra days of sales held back for a late delivery or a busy week.
• Review days: the inventory review period, or how often you check this list. Stock has to last until the next review plus the next delivery, which is why review days raise the target but not the trigger.

In textbook terms the target is an order up to level used with a periodic review. You check at set intervals and buy enough to reach the target. MIT OpenCourseWare's Supply Chain Planning course covers inventory policies like this in depth.

Before you act

Suggestions do not place orders or move stock, and headoffis does not know about deliveries already on the way. Check inbound orders, shelf capacity, stockouts and seasonal demand first.

How to avoid overstock

Compare the suggestion with the space the product has on its planogram. If the units will not fit on the shelf and in the Backroom, order less and review sooner. Lower the safety days for products with a reliable supplier, and use a longer sales window for products whose sales jump around.

How to prevent stockouts

A product that sold out partway through the window looks slower than it is, because the days it had no stock count as days with no sales. Raise its safety days, or order more than the suggestion. Count stock regularly, since an uncounted product is never flagged.

Replenishment planning across locations

The report follows the selected store and, if you filter by location, that location's stock. Units held elsewhere in the business are shown beside each suggestion. Moving stock from a slow store to a busy one costs nothing at the supplier, so check that column before you buy. The Census Bureau's Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales report tracks how much stock US retailers hold against their monthly sales, a useful outside reference for how lean stores run.

Common mistakes

• Ignoring today. The window counts today, which is only partly over, so a short window can read low early in the day.
• Recording no sales for a week. Missing entries lower the daily rate and the suggestion with it.
• Treating the number as an order. Export the replenishment CSV, adjust it for inbound orders and shelf space, then order.

Coming soon

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