Demand forecasting and reorder points

Every day at 4 AM UTC, ShipWave recomputes a forecast for every active SKU in every warehouse. It pulls the last 90 days of shipment volume, applies a moving average with seasonal weighting (last 14 days weighted higher than days 60-90), and produces a daily demand rate. Combined with each SKU's configured lead time, that becomes the reorder point: ROP = lead time days × daily demand + safety stock.

Open Admin → Inventory → Forecast for a live view, grouped into four status tabs:

• Urgent — on-hand is below ROP. Reorder now or risk a stockout.
• Reorder — on-hand is approaching ROP (within 7 days at current velocity).
• Healthy — on-hand covers expected demand through lead time plus safety stock.
• Idle — zero sales in the last 30 days. Consider liquidating.

On any Urgent or Reorder row, click Create PO draft. ShipWave builds a draft purchase order with the suggested reorder quantity (lead time demand + safety stock, rounded to the SKU's case pack), assigns it to the SKU's default supplier, and opens it in the PO editor for review. You can also batch multiple SKUs into a single PO from the same screen.

The forecast is only as good as the inputs. Each SKU has two knobs at Inventory → SKU → Forecast Settings: leadTimeDays (how long from PO to receipt) and safetyStockDays (cushion in days of demand). Defaults are 14 and 7. If you have noisy demand, increase safety stock. If your supplier ships fast, decrease lead time.

When a SKU crosses into Urgent, ShipWave sends an email digest at 8 AM UTC. The digest groups by supplier so you can fire off POs in batches.