How to set stock limits and reorder up to them

Replenishment reorders to stock limits you set yourself. You give each product a minimum and a maximum, and when stock falls below the minimum, Tideswell suggests enough to fill back up to the maximum. It opens from the Replenishment button at the top of Selling › Inventory, one of the stock screens in What is Inventory?.

The page header sums it up: "Set your stock limits. Review the fill. Create a purchase order when you're ready." The order it creates is an ordinary draft in What are suppliers and purchase orders?.

Your workspace may use its own word for purchase orders; Settings › Terminology shows both.

Before you start

You need:

• The Store and Purchase orders modules on. The Replenishment button shows only while Purchase orders is. To create the draft order, the Brain module must be on too. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.
• Your Shopify store connected, and its brands matched to your suppliers. See How to add and set up a supplier.
• See sales, inventory, reports and the daily brief and View purchase orders and the buying calendar on Settings › Permissions. Both start at lead.
• Edit purchase orders and the buying calendar to set limits, change quantities and create the order. It starts at lead. See How to set who can do what.

How do you choose which products to look at?

Pick one in the Choose a supplier menu. The table then lists every active product in your Shopify catalogue whose brand is matched to that supplier, including slow sellers.

Type in Search products or SKU to narrow the list, or tick Suggested only to see just the products that need ordering now. The list shows 50 products at a time, with Previous and Next below it.

If the supplier list is empty, the page reads No suppliers with active products yet. Press Open suppliers and attach your Shopify brands to a supplier from the Unmatched brands tray.

How do you set a product's limits?

Press Set limits on a product's row, or tick several rows and press Set limits (N) to give them all the same limits. The Set stock limits box opens.

1. Enter a Minimum and a Maximum: whole numbers, with the maximum at least the minimum.
2. Choose a type: Core inventory, Seasonal or Excluded.
3. Press Save limits.

The row then shows its limits in the Min / max column, such as "12 / 40". Tideswell never guesses limits for you, so until you set some, the page asks you to start by selecting products and setting their limits.

The three types work like this:

• Core inventory: suggested whenever stock drops below the minimum.
• Seasonal: uses the same limits, and its row carries the note Seasonal · adjust this order as needed, so you can skip it or order fewer.
• Excluded: never suggested. Its row reads Excluded from replenishment.

How is the suggested quantity worked out?

When Available falls below the minimum, Suggested is the maximum, less what is available, less what is incoming. When available stock is at or above the minimum, nothing is suggested.

At Fairgreen Golf Co., Priya Raman sets the merino quarter-zip from Kaimen Knitwear to 12 / 40. With 8 available and 10 incoming, Tideswell suggests 22, which brings it back to 40 once everything lands.

The table's columns are Product, Available, Incoming, Min / max, Suggested, Order, Unit cost and Total.

Available counts the locations you own. A line under the table says where Incoming comes from:

• Incoming from Shopify reads Shopify's incoming stock.
• Incoming from Tideswell open POs reads the open purchase orders you raised in Tideswell.

The choice is the Orders on order setting in the open-to-buy feed settings. See How to send your open-to-buy file to a buying planner.

The page checks stock again every minute, and Refresh checks it straight away.

How do you adjust the order before creating it?

Change any number in the Order column. A quantity of 0 skips that product. The change applies to this order only and leaves the limits as they are.

Above the table, Products to order, Units and Estimated order cost add up the order as you go. Unit cost is the cost per item Shopify holds for each product.

• To keep to a budget, enter it in Order budget. The page says how much is remaining or how far over budget the order is.
• When a product has no cost, its Unit cost reads Missing, and the total becomes Known cost. Add the cost on the purchase order before you send it.
• Reset order quantities puts every row back to its suggested quantity.

A product already on a draft purchase order shows a link under its name, On followed by that draft's number, and its Order box stays at 0. Open the link to change the quantity on that draft.

How do you create the purchase order?

Press Review order (N). The Review Kaimen Knitwear order box lists each product and its units, with the total.

1. Check the lines and the total. Back to quantities returns you to the table.
2. Press Create purchase order.

Tideswell creates a draft purchase order for that supplier and opens it. From there you approve, export or send it as with any other order. See How to write a purchase order.

If Tideswell has a message about the new draft, the box stays open to show it, with an Open purchase order button.

What if the page asks you to confirm your locations?

The page reads Confirm your owned inventory locations before ordering, and Review order stays off until you do. Press Review inventory settings to open Buying › Data feeds.

Open Open to buy and press Feed settings. Under Locations you own, switch on each location that is yours, then press Confirm.

Replenishment then counts stock only at those locations. The steps are in How to send your open-to-buy file to a buying planner.

What if a row shows a note instead of a suggestion?

The note says what Tideswell needs before it can suggest a quantity:

• Stock unavailable or not tracked: turn on inventory tracking for that product in Shopify.
• Available stock is unknown or Incoming stock is unknown: press Refresh to read the stock again.
• Excluded from replenishment: press its Min / max figures and choose another type to bring it back.

For a quick reorder from the whole catalogue at once, without setting limits, use Everything low on Selling › Inventory. See How to find out what you need to reorder.