Purchase advice

On the Purchase advice page you see which products you need to reorder and in what quantities. Stockhub calculates this from your past sales, or from what is short right now. From the advice you create an inbound straight away for the products you order.

Opening the page

In the menu, go to Purchase advice.

At the top you set what the advice is based on:

• Supplier: choose a supplier to see only their products. By default this shows All suppliers.
• Advice based on: with Forecast, Stockhub calculates the advice from expected sales. With Stock level, Stockhub only looks at what is short right now: open backorders or stock below the safety stock, depending on the purchase strategy of the product.

With Forecast you also set:

• Analysis period: over how many months sales are measured. The current month always counts, so 1 month means the current and the previous month.
• Forecast horizon: how many days ahead you want to have stock for.
• Include missed sales: Stockhub then only counts the days on which the product was in stock, so a period in which it was sold out does not make the advice too low.

Next to these settings, under Result of this selection, you see the totals of the advice: SKUs to reorder, Total advised units, Total purchase value and Avg. purchase value per SKU. If an inbound is already on its way for a product but only partly covers the advice, the product is listed under Already purchased with the label Partly. With All inbounds you go to the overview of your inbounds.

The advice per product

The list shows for each product:

• SKU and Product: which product it is.
• Supplier: the supplier of the product, if one is set.
• Available stock: how many units are available now.
• Incoming: how many units are on their way in an active inbound.
• Avg. daily sales: how many units you sell on average per day in the chosen period.
• Days until stockout: how many days it is expected to take until the product is sold out.
• Predicted stock: the stock you expect, based on the current stock, what is on its way and the expected sales.
• Advised order quantity: how many units Stockhub advises you to order.
• Purchase value: the expected purchase value of the advice. You see it when a cost price is set for the product.

If you choose Stock level, the columns Backorders, Safety stock and Purchase strategy take the place of Avg. daily sales, Days until stockout and Predicted stock. Under Purchase strategy you see whether the product is topped up for Backorders or up to the Safety stock. You set that strategy per product, on the Info tab of the product. You only see the safety stock for products with the Safety stock strategy.

With Search above the list you look up a product by SKU or description.

Create inbound from selection

You can create a new inbound straight from the advice.

1. Select the products you want to order. You can do this across several pages of the list. The box at the top of the list only selects the products on the page you see.
2. If you also want to order products from another filter, change the settings at the top, for example the Supplier or Advice based on. Stockhub then asks Keep selection?. With Keep selection your selected products are kept and you add products from the new filter to them. With Start over your selection is dropped. Kept products are greyed out in the list and cannot be selected again. When you hover over one, you see Already selected under forecast or Already selected under stock level.
3. Click Create inbound from selection.
4. The Add inbound window opens. All selected products are already in it, with the advised quantity. If they all have the same supplier, that supplier is already chosen.
5. Under Details, choose the Supplier with Search supplier if needed, or choose None. If the fulfilment company works with more than one warehouse, you also choose the Warehouse. If the supplier has an email address, you set up the mail to the supplier in the last step. If the supplier has no email address, you see Supplier has no email address and no mail is sent.
6. Fill in the Reference and the Shipment (forecasted). These fields are required. Tick Reference is the PO number if you want to use the inbound's own number as the reference; the Reference field then stays empty and Stockhub fills in the number when you save. The number of Pallets and Colli is optional. If the fulfilment company allows it, you also fill in a Remark here.
7. Turn on Requires customs clearance if needed. The stock can then only be stored once it has been indicated that customs has cleared the products.
8. Click Next. Under Inboundlines, check the products and the Quantity. Add a product with Search for products if needed. If you chose a supplier, you choose from that supplier's products and products without a supplier. Where needed, fill in the Batch, the Lot, the Best before date or the Serial numbers.
9. Click Next. Under Shipments, add the Track & trace if needed.
10. If the supplier has an email address, click Next. Under Supplier order email you see the mail Stockhub sends to the supplier as an order:
    • Mail to supplier is on if Mail inbound automatically is on for the supplier. Switch it on or off yourself. If it is off, no mail is sent, not even if the supplier receives inbounds automatically. You can still send the mail later via Actions in the inbound's detail screen.
    • You see the supplier's email address at To, the Subject and the mail itself. Adjust the subject and the text if needed; you change the text by typing directly in the mail.
    • If you ticked Reference is the PO number, the preview shows the number the inbound is expected to get. If the inbound gets a different number when it is saved, Stockhub puts that number in the mail.
11. Click Save.

You then find your new inbound under Inbounds in the menu. Products that the inbound fully covers disappear from the advice. For the detail screen of an inbound, see the article Inslagen beheren.