Hey Inventoro users 💙 ,

We have something special for you today and it’s is a pretty big announcement. Last month we worked on the Edit Arena and launched it in the app. So what is the Edit Arena?

The Edit Arena is a new part of Inventoro, where you can manage pretty much any product attribute inside of Inventoro. Things like MOQ, specific lead times, and packaging can now be set per SKU (see the complete list below). You can even set product predecessors or take out products from everyday recommendations altogether. 

Where you can find Edit arena? In Strategy Settings > Edit arena. Or just click here.

The Edit Arena is a tool designed for advanced inventory management. You can change parameters on any SKU or do bulk changes on groups of products. We have prepared some pretty advanced filters for you to set your product groups anyhow you need. By warehouse, by supplier, brand, collection, or much more. 

There are so many use cases for this:

• 💪 Exclude drop shipping products from order proposals
• 💪 Adjust order proposals to specific cubic meters to fit containers or other spaces
• 💪 Set expiration dates for fresh and super fresh products
• 💪 Set predecessors for new products, which replace older models
• 💪 And we could continue like this for the rest of the day. The possibilities are endless. 

And now finally. Here is the full list of settings you can do on any SKU or a group of SKUs defined by your filter.

1. You can edit suppliers or even create new ones and select which part of the portfolio you would like to purchase from them.
2. You can set different Minimum order quantities per SKU. 
3. You can set different Packing per SKU and Inventoro will automatically round purchase order proposal to this specific number. For example, you are ordering wine from a wine producer and they are enabling you to order just multiple six because in packing you have to have 6 bottles of wine.
4. The “Order” attribute represents if you would like to let Inventoro propose you optimum quantity to purchase or not. Anyway if you would like to stop ordering just set Order to No.
5. Attribute Visible represents your choice for total excluding these items from Inventoro. They won’t be a part of lists, reports, forecasts, purchase order proposals and so on.
6. Is your case that you would like to hold at least 1 piece for the item you are buying from one supplier? This is sometimes a part of the deal if you would like to achieve a better price. So you can easily set the Minimum inventory to 1. Inventoro will keep an eye on this and will look after that you have at least 1 piece no matter what.
7. Expirations in days are perfect for companies who have to deal with short expirations. For example dairy, grocery, pharma, brewery, etc. A good example is a simple yogurt where expiration dates are in just a few days. Inventoro will optimize inventory to cover just this specific expiration date and will eliminate write-offs because of expiration.
8. We have prepared specific settings for the Purchase order period and lead time for SKUs. For example, the lead time for the whole supplier could be 40 days but for a specific part of their portfolio the lead time will be 80 days. 
9. You can set weight in kilograms and volume in m3 per SKU. This is a preparation for our new feature where Inventoro can create a purchase order with automatic utilization of for example one 20” feet container, 40” or even 40” high cube container.
10. Last but not least is support for predecessors. Imagine that you’ve just added completely new products to your portfolio. With zero sales data, zero information. If you link these new products to current (existing) items, Inventoro will automatically utilize sales history from these predecessors and be able to create consistent forecasts from day 1.

How to work with the available filters?

We have prepared a bunch of different filter you can use for choosing the right part of your portfolio.

Direct pick from a list:

Fulltext in product name, sales category, supplier etc.:

Mathematical operations:

Yes/no attribute:

Bulk edit

If you want to change for example Minimum order quantity for all SKUs in the filter you can use the input in the first row as below

And then confirm the change to all selected SKUs.

Have a great day!

newWe have some exciting news! Bundles has been officially launched.

You ask, we deliver! Now with Bundles, you have another great way to effectively manage your inventory.

Bundles are the simplest way of BOM. BOM is the acronym for bill of materials. A BOM is a listing of the quantities of each of the materials used to manufacture a product.

You'll find this new feature in Strategy settings on the left menu, see tab Bundles.

The first step is to create the bundle. Click on the button Add bundle on the top. Then you can select an existing bundle from a list of items. After this you must confirm that you would like to create a new bundle from the existing SKU (item or product).

Now you'll see this bundle in the list of bundles. 

Now we can move on to the next step which is to add new item into this bundle. See point number 1 on the image below.

The next step (see number 2) is to add the required quantity for this item you need to create the bundles. See example, you'll need 2 pcs of Milk for this "Ready to go basket".

The last step is just to click on the Save button to confirm this operation.

Inventoro will calculate optimum Purchase order proposals including the necessary quantity for bundles.

You can also search in the list of Bundles, see option number 4 on the image above.

Have a great day!

Hey there,

we have a second announcement today. What a day uh? 😀

This feature is called Merge orders, which is a new way how to work with Inventoro’s purchase order proposals in default mode. 

How does Inventoro propose purchase orders?

It goes like this. We know the sales forecast, on-hand inventory, in-transit inventory, and of course, Inventoro knows who is the supplier and his lead time and purchase order period, etc.

Basically, this is the overall result. It’s called SawTooths graph (or sometimes diagram or model). This is a simulation of your future inventory and also the reason why our logo looks like it does.

For this Inventoro needs to propose a purchase order with proper timing regarding real lead time. You can see several purchase orders (blue color).

By default, Inventoro will provide a sum of these purchase orders for the chosen period (for example next 60 days or 12 months). 

If you turn off the "Merge orders" function by clicking on the switch. You will see every PO proposal with proper timing. 

Here you can see an example.

If you choose one SKU from your portfolio, in this example Beer for Sydney store, and you would like to know what to purchase for the whole year (next 12 months) you will see this.

But if you would like to know the exact plan of every PO you will have to send to your supplier at a specific time, you can easily click on this and then you will see this list of proposals for concrete dates.

So looking at purchase orders merged is good for negotiations and long term planning. Turn merging off and you will have a much better daily plan. 

Have a nice day!

Hey there,

We have some awesome news! Forecast adjustments have now been officially launched! You'll find this directly in the Forecast section above the main graph.

What's the story behind forecast adjustments? 

Inventoro has more than a hundred statistical and mathematical forecasting methods 💪. These range from very naive like moving averages and linear regressions to complex machine learning including deep learning methods. Among these, we have specific forecasting methods for intermittent demand. Yes for sporadic sales which is very hard to forecast anyway. This whole framework gives Inventoro a huge opportunity to automatically create an appropriate level of future forecast in comparison with historical sales. That means Inventoro will probably respect current trends, seasonality, etc. by design. 

But (!) in case you as a company feel or expect additional or even different customer demand, you now have the ability to add these adjustments. It is as simple as change % for the chosen period up or down. Or you can easily add another trend month to month level in %. 

Here are several examples of how simple this really is.

1. Additional adjustment of +15% for the whole period

This is what the future forecast will look like.

Here is the proper setting.

And this is the result.

3. In case you would like to add an additional boost to your sales because of ...  fill any reason

Just add +10% to a trend section like this.

Important note: Saved adjustments will take effect after the computation process.

Be the first to learn about Sales forecast adjustment.

Hey Inventoro fans and users,

this is a piece of big big news for you. By design, Inventoro is able to automatically calculate sales forecasts for the next 24 months ahead. This is not a surprise. We are also able to calculate every purchase order proposal from now till the same horizon. The last piece of the puzzle is data about inventory on hand, in transit, etc., you know. We decided to make a complete projection of the future inventory on monthly basis.

What are the main benefits for you?

• you can speculate on the capacity of your warehouse or fulfillment center in the future
• you will see a complete picture of the future flows (sales and inventory)
• you can speculate and buy more inventory if you see free space in your warehouse
• last but not least: you will see the projection of the real benefit of using Inventoro in a matter of decrease of working capital!

We also prepare a projection of Safety stock as additional information for you and your decisions. Safety stock is a part of your Inventory that absorbs every uncertainty in delivery times (lead times) of your suppliers and also uncertainty in sales forecast accuracy. We can describe safety stock as a level of extra stock that is maintained to mitigate risk of stockouts caused by uncertainties in supply and demand.

So give us your feedback, please. What do you think?

Have a nice day.

Hey, Inventoro world!

We are happy to announce to you our new feature. Now it is easier to make decisions above every purchase order proposal because you will see the real priority of your products right there.

Most of you have hundreds or thousands of items to buy from your suppliers. Sometimes days are hectic and you would like to finish this job quickly. This is the way how to prioritize your needs.

Just go to replenishment and see that with your own eyes.

Did you see the two golden bricks on the right top? Does it catch your attention, right?

This is what we do every single day. We take your fresh data and then calculate real availability of your articles. On the level of the article we are able to automatically identify the level of inventory which leads to lower or lost sales. This doesn’t have to be zero inventory. Every item is specific and for example if you have the last 10 pieces of bananas customers tend to pick another fruit instead.

Current availability of products

This value represents the real availability of your inventory right now. 100% means that everything your customers need to buy is available in your inventory. So basically you can satisfy your customers.

The lower the number is the bigger problem you have. The difference between 100% and this value represents lost opportunity.

Lost monthly revenue

As you know Inventoro is able to detect lost sales due to stockouts. This is an interpretation of the value you are losing on a monthly level. We also understand that this is the potential of increasing monthly revenue if you are using Inventoro. This is probably the most important benefit of Inventoro, the increasing availability. This can have a huge impact on your daily business.

Inventory reduction potential

We know your current inventory level (on hand) in value. We also know for every item you have in your portfolio the optimum inventory level. By the comparison of these two values we identify potential for reducing or decreasing inventory. This represents the sum of this potential. And this is also the second most important benefit of using Inventoro, the inventory optimization. Imagine your inventory is like a living organism which is able to balance its own structure every day. 

Happy Valentine's Day.

Everybody needs some reports, sometimes.

Hey Inventoro community! 

We've been super busy over the last few weeks, and we're excited to share our updates! 

We've released a new feature called Reports. This feature allows you to use three outstanding reports.

Stock overview

The ultimate goal of inventory management and optimization is to have an optimal structure of inventory, for every article or every SKUs.

This report shows you which part of inventory is in excess and which part of inventory is little or more underestimated in comparison with optimum level.

Sales forecast

This report is perfect for planning purposes. Here you can find sales forecasts per article, warehouse or store. These predictions are in quantity and also in revenue.

Sometimes this is called the first step of proper Sales & Operations planning process, where you can create different scenarios for your company including balance between the sales and logistic or supply chain capacities.  

Potential stockouts

This is crucial for decision making on an operative level. You will see every SKU within your portfolio which is currently facing the stockout or very soon will be in the stockout. Inventoro is able to calculate so called Lost sales and also Lost margin. So you can prioritize what you should solve very quickly with your suppliers.

We'll be using this changelog to tell you about any new features that we've launched, any improvements we make, or minor bug fixes.

We'd love to get your 🗣feedback on our new releases; 

• click the emojis
• send us more detailed feedback on any of our posts.

We've posted the last release notes so you can see what we've been working on recently. Click the expand button to open in a new tab. Hit Read More to see the full post. Click gifs to see a bigger image and click again to close. 

That's all; now you are fully updated!