The Alerts panel uses recent sales and current stock to suggest what to buy. Where purchasing is enabled, Reorder opens a draft purchase-order flow. Creating a draft does not book stock onto the shelf or confirm a supplier has received an order.
Open it
On Inventory, press Alerts. The panel slides in from the right. The number on the button is how many products are low or out.
The list is for the location the page is showing. Switch the location selector and it is recalculated for that store.
How the ranking is worked out
For each product the system takes the units sold at that location in the last 30 days, divides by 30 to get a daily rate, and divides your current stock by that rate to get the days you have left.
| Rank | Means |
|---|---|
| critical | Out of stock now, or fewer than 7 days left |
| soon | Fewer than 21 days left |
| planned | More than that, but still worth watching |
Seven days is the lead time the calculation assumes, and 21 is that plus two weeks of safety stock. Those numbers are fixed; there is no setting for them, and they are the same for a supplier who delivers overnight and one who takes a month.
The suggested quantity is what would carry you three weeks at the current rate, less what you already have.
Reading a card
Each card shows the product, its code, its urgency, its current stock, and how long it has left — 4d until stockout. Cards are coloured red for critical, amber for soon. Stockout imminent replaces the days figure only once the count has gone below zero.
A product that sold nothing in the last 30 days is left off the list unless it is sitting at zero, in which case it shows as critical with a suggestion of one unit — there are no sales to work a real number from. Its card reads 999d until stockout, which is what the system writes when there is no sales rate to divide by. It does not mean you have years of cover. Read the badge, not the days.
If the calculation has nothing to say at all, the panel falls back to listing every product at or under 20 in stock with a Quick Reorder button. That button behaves exactly like the one described below.
Create draft purchase orders
- Clear the Inventory search box so the reorder picker uses the broader product list. Confirm the active location.
- In Alerts, choose Reorder +N units or Quick Reorder. The Generate purchase orders window opens with that product selected.
- Review the selected products and quantities. The suggestion is a starting point; compare it with stock already ordered and the supplier's pack size.
- Choose a Supplier for every selected line. If there is only one supplier on file, it is selected automatically; still verify it is the right one.
- Press Generate POs. The success message tells you how many draft orders were created and whether any lines were skipped.
- Open Purchase Orders to review the drafts before following your normal supplier ordering process.
The drafts are grouped by supplier. They do not increase on-hand stock. Record goods as received only when the delivery actually arrives and has been checked.
If no order is created
No suppliers on file means you need to add a supplier under Suppliers first. A disabled Generate button can also mean no product is selected or a selected line has no supplier.
If a selected product is no longer in the list, close the window, clear the Inventory search and reopen it. Do not substitute a different product just to submit the order.
If the result says No purchase orders were created — nothing was saved, correct the reported issue and retry. When some drafts were created and some lines skipped, inspect the created drafts before retrying the remaining lines so you do not order them twice.
Using it well
- Read it weekly, at each store separately. The rates are per location.
- Trust the ranking more than the quantity. The order of the list comes from your real sales; the suggested number comes from fixed assumptions that may not match your supplier.
- Read an empty panel in context. During a search or partial view, it may describe only the loaded products. Clear the search and check the scope notice before assuming every item is healthy.