Reorder points and safety stock

Skuvelo calculates a reorder point and safety stock for every SKU, and recalculates both as demand and lead times change. You steer them through the inputs below. A SKU can also carry a reorder point you accepted or typed in yourself; from then on planning uses your number for that SKU, and until you do, Skuvelo works one out.

What they mean in Skuvelo

• Safety stock is the extra stock held against demand swings and supplier delays. It is based on how much the SKU's weekly sales vary, the lead time, and your target service level. For supplier delays it starts from your planning buffer. Once there are five or more completed receipts of that SKU from its supplier, Skuvelo measures how much those delivery times actually vary and uses that figure when it is larger. Delivery times alone never take the allowance below your planning buffer, however steady they are. Delivery quantities can. Once five or more completed order lines of that SKU from its supplier are in, Skuvelo averages how far short of the ordered quantity each line arrived. That average is rounded to a tenth of a percent, so it counts from 0.05% up: a supplier averaging less than that rounds to zero, is treated as arriving in full, and your planning buffer stays. From 0.05% up, Skuvelo multiplies the rounded average by the lead time to get a minimum in days (a 10% average shortfall on a 20-day lead time gives 2 days) and uses that in place of the planning buffer, even when it is smaller than the buffer. The measured delivery-time figure still wins when it is larger. With no shortfall measured, or a lead time of 0 days, the planning buffer stays.
• The reorder point is the demand expected while you wait for a delivery, plus safety stock. If stock falls to that level, it's time to order. When you have set a reorder point for the SKU, that number is used instead.

Where you set the inputs

Settings → Planning defaults holds the workspace-wide settings every SKU uses unless it has its own:

• Target service level: the chance of not running out between deliveries. Choose Lean (90%), Balanced (95%) or Overstock (98%), or use Fine-tune (%) to pick anything from 50% to 99.5%. A higher service level means more safety stock.
• Planning buffer: the number of days you assume a supplier's deliveries may run late. Measured delivery times never take the allowance below it. A measured short-delivery average replaces it, as described above, and can be smaller than it.

Only roles that can manage settings can change these. Other roles can view them.

To override one SKU, open it under Products and use Edit item › Replenishment overrides. Leave a field empty to use the workspace default. The same section has Safety-stock floor (days of cover), a minimum number of days of stock. Skuvelo turns it into units using average daily demand and keeps whichever is larger, your floor or its own figure. You can also edit the floor in the Safety stock column on Plan → Replenishment, but not on a phone. A discontinued product carries no safety stock.

To set one floor for everything you buy from a supplier, open the supplier and use Keep a safety stock of at least … days of cover. It applies to every item whose order supplier that is (the preferred one), unless the item has a floor of its own, which always wins. Saving tells you how many items now use it and how many keep their own. On Plan → Replenishment, an item with no floor of its own names the supplier's floor in its Safety stock cell.

How they drive the buy plan

A SKU shows up in the buy plan when its stock, plus deliveries arriving soon enough to count, is at or below the reorder point, or when Skuvelo projects it will run out. The recommended quantity brings it back up to lead-time demand plus safety stock plus a target number of days of cover. Minimum order quantities, order multiples and case packs can then round it up. The target days of cover in the buy plan is fixed at 28 days, and you can't change it.

Where you see them

• A purchase order line's recommendation detail, and the buy plan's detail on a phone, list Service level, Safety stock, Without your floor and Reorder point.
• The Inventory screen counts SKUs Below reorder point today.

Start with a suggested reorder point

Skuvelo can suggest a reorder point for a product from three things it already has: your own recent sales (average units a day), the supplier's lead time, and your service level.

The formula in words: average daily sales x lead time in days, plus safety stock. The item page shows the working, for example "avg 3.1/day x 21-day lead time + safety stock 18 at 95% service level".

Nothing is saved until you press Accept. Skuvelo never sets a reorder point for you. Accepting writes the number as that product's policy, and planning buys against it from then on. Undo restores what was there before, including "none set".

A product with less than 8 weeks of sales history shows "needs more sales history" and no number, on purpose. A reorder point from a few weeks of sales is a guess, and a confident wrong number is worse than an honest gap. A product with no sales in that window says so rather than suggesting zero.

If the product has no supplier lead time yet, the suggestion uses Skuvelo's default; add the supplier's real lead time and the suggestion recalculates on its own.

A suggestion keeps recalculating as sales and lead times change. A number you accepted never changes on its own — only you change it.

You can also type a reorder point yourself on the item page, under Replenishment overrides.

Limits

• Skuvelo needs at least 8 weeks of sales history, counted from a SKU's first sale, before it forecasts that SKU or recommends an order for it.
• A SKU with no supplier linked gets no recommended order. Skuvelo still shows a reorder point and safety stock for it, worked out with a 21-day lead time until you link a supplier.
• An archived product gets no recommended order.