Demand planning helps you recognize, based on your sales and existing supplier orders, in good time which products should be reordered soon and in what quantity. You'll find it under Purchasing → Demand Planning.
The order suggestion is calculated as follows:
Bestellvorschlag = Meldebestand - Bestand - im Zulauf + Reserviert
If a maximum stock is maintained for the product, this is used as the replenishment target for the order suggestion – the reorder point then serves as a fallback.
How is the calculation performed?
Basically, you can carry out your demand planning based on reference sales within a specific time period or based on the reorder point. On the right side of the view, you can access all configuration options via the gear icon. Using the filter icon, you can additionally filter the displayed data according to various criteria.
Calculation based on sales within a reference period
This variant applies if you haven't maintained reorder points or if they are very low. In this case, the order suggestion is calculated as follows:
Bestellvorschlag = Voraussichtlicher Bedarf - Bestand + Reserviert (optional)
You can include or exclude reserved stock by enabling or disabling the option Consider open customer orders for order suggestion in the calculation settings.
Calculation based on the reorder point
If you have maintained reorder points or if they are high enough, the calculation is performed as follows:
Bestellvorschlag = Meldebestand - Bestand + Reserviert (optional)
You can include or exclude reserved stock by enabling or disabling the option Consider open customer orders for order suggestion in the calculation settings.
If you don't want to include any projected sales in demand planning at all, enter the value 0 in the field Projected demand for in the calculation.
Further explanations of the key figures
Reorder point – The reorder point can be set in the product properties. Optionally, a daily reorder point notification can be configured under Settings → Extensions → Pickware ERP.
Maximum stock – The maximum stock is the preferred replenishment target for the order suggestion. If it is set for the product, the order suggestion fills the stock up to this value; if no maximum stock is set, the reorder point serves as the replenishment target. You maintain the maximum stock in the product properties. Note: Products where the maximum stock is higher than the reorder point can now receive an order suggestion where previously no suggestion was calculated.
Sales – Here you see all sold units of a product within the reference period you specified. The decisive factor is the sold quantity from the orders within the reference period: Cancelled orders are not counted as sales, whereas returns are not deducted from the sold quantity. So if, for example, a product was sold 100 times and returned 10 times within the reference period, 100 units still count as sales in the demand planning.
Incoming – This value corresponds to the order quantity minus the delivery quantity, i.e. the quantity of a product from all supplier orders that are not in the status Delivered, Completed or Cancelled.
Reserved – This value corresponds to the order quantity from open customer orders and can be included in or excluded from the calculation via the option Consider open customer orders for order suggestion.
Growth factor
In the calculation settings, you can set a growth factor that scales the calculated demand. The default value is 1.00 – the order suggestion is not changed by this. A value greater than 1 increases the projected demand proportionally, a value less than 1 (but greater than 0) reduces it. This allows you to factor in expected growth or seasonal fluctuations directly in demand planning without having to adjust the reference sales.
The growth factor only affects the sales-based calculation (reference period) and must be greater than 0.
What's next?
From demand planning, you can add products to the purchase list. You can find out more about this here.
You can find out how to check whether your purchase list reaches your supplier's minimum order value here.