How to Calculate Inventory Reorder Points and Safety Stock Values

The fact is that different businesses have different factors that will impact their supply chain – and in turn, their safety stock formula. You can use the common formula above, but you may need to make adjustments or add in additional data. Things like your reorder period, order quantity requirement, and upstream failure can affect your safety stock calculations.

The reality of inventory management is that achieving 99.9% service level requires an enormous amount of inventory. Indeed, 99.9% means that you don’t want to afford more than 1 day of stockout every 3 years. With the classical safety stock formula, using a very high service level does not generate massive stocks.

Misconception: reorder point leads to big infrequent orders

Each scenario can bring an efficient reorder point strategy to a halt. We briefly mentioned automation when talking about reorder point calculators. Inventory management software can be a huge positive for your organization in several ways. Even if running on automated software, it’s wise to review your processes and verify everything is operating as intended.

• Reorder point formulas are all about prevention while stockouts are a cure.
• You’ll have enough shirts left on hand units – to sustain you until the next delivery of shirts.
• They’re also the best way to implement reorder points in the inventory management system you use for your business.
• A healthy safety stock level will help keep your business moving in these situations.
• The reorder point (ROP) is the minimum inventory or stock level for a specific product that triggers the reordering of more inventory when reached.
• Calculating your inventory fill rate will also help you forecast the rate at which your business can fulfill orders to meet supply and demand.

In this article, you will learn how to effectively manage your business’s inventory using reorder points (ROP), transforming guesswork into data-backed decisions. You will understand what reorder points are, how to calculate them, and their critical role in warehouse operations, inventory management, and overall business efficiency. For growing retailers, manufacturers, or wholesalers, working with dozens or hundreds of spreadsheets can be time-consuming and error-prone. If your business falls into this category, consider the benefits of inventory management software. If you have at least one procurement cycle and one sales cycle worth of data, you can start using the reorder point formula to improve your inventory operations.

Inadequate safety stock formula cannot account for demand and supply variability

Take a video tour to learn more about our platform and features, or schedule a demo to see what Finale can do for your business. It also costs employees time to receive, organize and stock unnecessary products. The reorder point — sometimes known as the reorder level — is an essential piece of information for every retailer and supplier. The reorder point is what ordering managers or automated software systems follow as a guideline for ordering new stock.

• As you build this body of data, you can improve forecasting to meet customer demand better.
• As you build this body of data, you can improve forecasting to better meet customer demand.
• Keeping optimal stock levels in order to avoid stockouts is an integral task of inventory management.
• As a result, you need to average the loss values over several dozens of distinct dates to obtain a reliable estimate when looking at a single SKU.

At the same time, running out of stock causes slow order fulfilment, the potential for missed sales, and lost revenue. The safety stock calculation may not work for all businesses due to a variety of factors, such as seasonal demand trends and storage capacity. Knowing which products are hot items and those that are cooling off allows you to jump on new opportunities and adjust your stock to meet increased demand. Next, a reorder point must take into account a supplier’s lead time, or the amount of time it takes for an ordered shipment to arrive.

The manufacturer should hold 132 safety stock units to avoid bottlenecks in production. For enterprise-level solutions, there are countless calculators, many of which come with automated inventory management systems. Reorder points The software can streamline your reordering processes among a lot of other operational tools. Delays with your suppliers create headaches with your inventory management, resulting in a scarcity of your product.

L Billing Automation: Simplifying Warehouse Billing

To accurately calculate reorder points, you’ll need to have strong records on sales volume and trends over a certain time period. As you build this body of data, you can improve forecasting to better meet customer demand. Reorder points help to ensure products and cash flow in the right direction, at the right time. With accurate reorder points for all of your product SKUs, you can meet customer demand in a timely fashion to improve cash flow and avoid the bloated costs of overstock.

First, reorder points allow a business to make fast, low-stress, data-driven decisions about ordering inventory, without having to start from first principles every time. A simple, rules-based approach saves time and reduces the possibility of costly mistakes in inventory management. In addition, you must update and run the formula often to ensure accuracy – especially for businesses affected by seasonality. It’s highly recommended to opt for an inventory management program that can both run the calculations for you and analyse the data you put in. Reorder points help you know when to order more stock, so you never hit your safety stock level. Whereas, safety stock exists as a last option you would only use in an emergency.

Mastering Material Requirements Planning (MRP): Navigating the Supply-Demand Seas

Or, in some cases, such as fresh food, you will have to literally throw away the food at the end of the day, because you cannot keep it tomorrow or next week or next month,” Nasiry says. In this retailer’s guide to reorder points, you’ll learn everything you need to know to set effective reorder points and much more. A reorder point (ROP) is a specific level at which your stock needs to be replenished. In other words, it tells you when to place an order so you won’t run out of stock. These programs may come with additional costs, but you could actually lose more money by not making the investment.

If your business doesn’t operate with a safety stock or has a high day-to-day variable with sales, don’t worry. It’s possible to replace your average daily sales with a metric called daily maximum usage. With an accurate reorder point, staff can refocus time and attention to other areas of daily operations that better utilize their talents. When that stock arrives, our inventory level will rise from 4 weeks worth to 17 weeks worth. When our inventory levels reach 14 weeks worth (10-week lead time + 4 weeks worth of buffer), we will place another order… and the cycle continues.

How does the reorder point formula work?

When the inventory level reaches 350 units an order should be placed for material. By the time the inventory level reaches zero towards the end of the seventh day from placing the order materials will reach and there is no cause for concern. When your inventory is down to 160 pieces, that’s when you need to order more from your supplier. It might seem like a lot for a product that only moves four units a day, but in this case it’s the long lead time that drives the result. When inventory reaches the level specified by the ROP, that means it’s time to act. Reorder points simplify and streamline the business decision of when to reorder inventory.

To figure out the lead time demand, you need to multiply your lead time with the average daily sales of a specific product. ShipBob is an order fulfillment solution that features built-in inventory management software, giving you precise control over your inventory. You can check inventory counts at each fulfillment center and set automatic reorder levels, so you are notified when stock is running low. Keeping optimal stock levels in order to avoid stockouts is an integral task of inventory management.

If you wait to order until you have run out of inventory, then there will be a lag between when you place the order and when you can sell your new inventory. Setting a reorder point can help you reorder in time to avoid this availability gap. “When you end up having a lot of inventory that you cannot sell to your customers, that’s costly because inventory is what you have paid for and your customers have not paid for yet. And if you have excessive inventory, you will have to do a couple of things. InFlow Cloud has a Reorder Stock window, which identifies which products need reordering, and creates new purchase orders with just one click.

The reorder point (ROP) is the level of inventory which triggers an action to replenish that particular inventory stock. It is a minimum amount of an item which a firm holds in stock, such that, when stock falls to this amount, the item must be reordered. It is normally calculated as the forecast usage during the replenishment lead time plus safety stock. In the EOQ (Economic Order Quantity) model, it was assumed that there is no time lag between ordering and procuring of materials. Second, identifying and using a reorder point to trigger inventory resupply helps a business operate more efficiently by balancing two competing needs.

To get started, let’s look at what happens to inventory levels of just one item. This will help us understand the terms, reorder point and safety stock. Your inventory reorder point levels should cover every item in stock, including all different SKUs.

Ordering more product than you need can also result in lack of storage space as well as unnecessarily tying up cash in stock. Using inventory reorder points as part of your inventory management strategy also helps you keep your distribution costs low. Some businesses who run their operations from multiple warehouses use the location of their warehouses as a strategy for cost savings. While businesses have an official lead time from suppliers in their service level agreements, the exact number can vary from time to time. If their SLA says 5 days, they more often than not deliver within 2 days.

Our reorder point formula considers your real-time inventory levels, so you always have an accurate reading. Finale lets you establish reorder levels for each item and implement automatic reorders to free up time and keep operations running smoothly. It is a function of the daily usage of this item and the variation in supplier lead times. Small businesses can use the reorder point formula to calculate when items need to be replenished before their inventory levels hit zero.