Demand Forecast

Forecast upcoming demand for your products based on historical sales performance. Easily create purchase orders in Veeqo

Updated over a week ago

This report will help you understand what products you need to order in advance so you do not run out and lose sales. 

There are two ways to easily create purchase orders in bulk for multiple products.

  1. Forecast demand based on sales history (this article)

  2. Create purchase orders based on reorder levels

Important: This report is designed to be viewed one location at a time. However, you can select "All locations", which will add/combine all the values for those locations per product.

Creating a Purchase Order using the Demand Forecast

  1. Navigate to the Demand Forecast report by clicking Purchasing > Demand Forecast

  2. Select Settings

  3. Choose to base the report on Previous Sales OR Reorder Levels

  4. Tick the check box on the products you would like to reorder from your suppliers

  5. Click New Purchase Order

6. Choose between using the product's default supplier, or manually select a supplier.

7. Indicate whether the purchase order's status is Draft or Active.

Note:

  • If Active, you can choose to send an email to the supplier directly through Veeqo

  • Purchase Orders are not editable in Veeqo once they leave the draft status

8. You can choose to add the items to an existing draft purchase order (if applicable)

How recommended reorder levels are calculated

Veeqo calculates your sell-through rate for a previous period (defaults to last 30 days) and predicts your stock requirements for the future.

Veeqo calculates this by working out the number of units sold and dividing by the number of days in the date range you selected for the previous sales period. We then have a daily sales number which we can time by how many days/weeks you want to keep the product in stock for.

To fine-tune forecasted demand, adjust the following settings in the report:

Report setting

Definition

Sales uplift

Adjust the sell-through rate by a fixed %.

If you set the previous sales history date to last December but know you are growing at 10% from the previous year, you can set the uplift to 10%

Stock holding time

The length of time you want your new order of stock to last.

We work out your daily sell-through rate (units sold divided by the number of days in the date period selected) and multiply that by the number of days in stock holding time.

Supplier lead time

The number of days to receive stock from your supplier. Veeqo assumes a default lead time of 7 days if this field is left blank.

Lead time can be customized for each supplier and SKU.

Customer waiting on backorders

Reorder items on backorder.

When this setting is ON, the report will adjust “Suggested Qty” to add customer backorder qty.

This quantity is calculated by the number of products that are unallocated in orders with the status "Waiting for Stock".

Max stock option

Optional. If enabled then Veeqo will cap the order qty to the "max" amount set for the product in that location.

With infinite stock

Off by default. When switched on, it will show products are set to have infinite inventory quantity

Include kits

Off by default. When enabled, it will account for products that were sold as part of another bundle/kit.

Show default supplier

Off by default. When enabled, it will only show suppliers who are the default for that product.

Tips for using this report

Before getting started:

When sending suppliers a purchase order:

  • You can only create a purchase order when you have only 1 location selected. If you have set it to "All Locations" then this feature is blocked.

  • If you prefer to send your supplier one big order, then you can create a draft purchase order and then keep adding items to that same purchase order by using the option "Add items to existing draft purchase order".

Forecast report columns definition

Report Column

Definition

SKU

SKU stands for Stock keeping unit. A unique identifier per product variation.

Previous Sales (Units sold)

Total sales revenue for this product excluding sales tax and shipping revenue but includes discounts.

Units sold = sales of this product. Excludes the sale of this item from inside another product bundle/kit. You can toggle the "Include Kits" option to change this.

Supplier (lead time)

Your default supplier for this product, which can be changed.

Lead time: The number of days it takes for goods to be delivered after being ordered from the supplier.

Cost

The cost price of the selected supplier. Each supplier in Veeqo can have a separate price per product. You can overwrite this manually in the report.

Available (Days left to sell out)

Inventory available for sale which is calculated by stock on hand, less committed stock.

Days left to sell out: Days/weeks/months left before this product runs out of stock based on the sales period selected.

Customer backorder

This quantity is calculated by the number of products that are unallocated in orders with the status "Waiting for Stock".

Incoming

Number of units that have been ordered from a supplier but have not been received

In transit

Inventory due to arrive from another of your locations

After

Inventory available when everything arrives from suppliers and stock transfers.

Calculated by: Available + incoming + In Transit - customer backorders

Min stock qty

Minimum stock qty you should keep for this product. Set per location manually.

Max stock qty

Maximum stock qty you should keep for this product. Set per location manually.

Qty to order (Days left to sell out)

Inventory qty you should order to have enough to cover stock holding time (i.e. 4 weeks) minus you After inventory qty.

Stock cover time qty is calculated by: (Number of days in period / units sold) * Number of days in stock cover.

Days left to sell out = Days/weeks/months left before this product runs out of stock based on sales period selected.

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