Purchase planning: supplier prices and reorder suggestions

Purchase planning tells you what to buy, from whom and how much: supplier price lists with minimum orders and lead times, reorder suggestions worked out from stock, what's on order, what orders are waiting for and how fast things sell, and draft purchase orders made from them in one step.

Requires Inventory. Purchase planning is an add-on to Inventory: it works only while Inventory is on for your organization, and turns off with it. Ask CRMSix support to turn both on.

Supplier price lists

  1. Open a product. On its Stock card, under Suppliers, choose Add supplier.
  2. Choose the supplier (an account, or just a name), and enter its price and currency, minimum order, lead time in days and its own product code.
  3. Tick Preferred supplier for the one you usually buy from (one per product).

On a new purchase order, choosing the supplier fills in each product’s cost from its price list, and shows its minimum order and code.

Reorder suggestions

Inventory → Reorder lists the tracked products that need buying. For each one, CRMSix works out:

  • Available stock (good, not reserved), what’s on order (including draft purchase orders, so nothing is suggested twice), and what activated orders are waiting for beyond what’s reserved.
  • Daily use: what was issued over the last 30 to 365 days (90 unless you change it), net of returns, and how many days of stock that leaves.
  • The reorder point: the product’s own, or, without one, enough to cover its supplier’s lead time plus a week.

A product needs buying when available + on order − waiting is at or below the reorder point. The suggested quantity covers 30 more days of use (at least the product’s reorder quantity), rounded up to the supplier’s minimum order. The supplier is the preferred one, else the cheapest.

Draft purchase orders in one step

  1. Tick the products to buy, and change any quantity or cost.
  2. Choose the warehouse to deliver to, and choose Create draft purchase orders.
  3. CRMSix makes one draft per supplier (and currency), expected after the supplier’s lead time. Check them in Purchase orders, then mark them ordered.

A product without a supplier price can’t be included: add its supplier first (the Reorder page links to it).

Supplier performance

The Reorder page also shows each supplier over the last 12 months: purchase orders, how many arrived by the expected date, the average time from ordering to receiving, how many are late now, and what you spent.