The Inventory Forecasting Report helps sellers using ConnectStock accurately predict their inventory needs and make informed replenishment and purchasing decisions.
You can access this report by going to: Reports → Inventory → Inventory Forecasting Report
Note: This report updates once per day, not in real time. The top right shows when it was last refreshed. If you make changes that affect the report — like updating velocity or adding bills or purchase orders — click Recalculate to trigger a fresh calculation. This may take a few minutes.
1. Overview of Key Settings
Item-Level Purchasing Settings
Each item has its own purchasing and velocity settings, including:
Lead Time — Days from placing a purchase order to when it arrives.
Inventory Buffer — How many days of stock you want to keep on hand.
Reorder Frequency — How many days of inventory each reorder should cover.
Velocity Settings — Defines the historical sales period used to calculate future demand (e.g., last 30, 60, 90 days), with customizable weight distribution. For example: 40% weight from the last 7 days, 30% from the last 90 days, 30% from the last 180 days.
Override Velocity — You can manually set a fixed daily velocity for any item. This is especially helpful for new items or products with no sales history.
2. How to Configure Purchasing Settings
You can apply or update these settings in three ways:
On the Inventory Forecasting Report, by clicking on the velocity number.
On the ConnectStock Items page, click on the item and navigate to the Purchasing section.
In bulk — on the ConnectStock Items page, click Export, select Purchasing Settings, then import via the Items page.
3. Default Settings for New Accounts and New Items
When a new account is created, it starts with these default purchasing settings:
Lead Time: 30 days
Reorder Frequency: 30 days
Inventory Buffer: 30 days
This default applies to all new items you create. To change the defaults, go to Stores & Files → Inventory Files → File Settings → Forecasting Report and set your preferred values.
4. How the Forecasting Logic Works
The report uses a combination of your inputs to determine when and how much to reorder:
Sales Velocity — Based on past sales or manual override.
Lead Time — Ensures reorders arrive before inventory runs out.
Inventory Buffer — Checks how much you want to keep on hand.
Reorder Frequency — Determines how long each reorder should last.
Purchase Order ETA Behavior
By default, the system takes the ETA of each open purchase order into account when calculating reorder recommendations. If your available inventory is projected to run low before an incoming PO is due to arrive, the system will recommend placing a new order.
If you'd prefer the system to ignore PO ETAs and treat all incoming inventory as if it's available today, you can enable this in File Settings → Forecasting Report → Ignore PO ETA.
For example, if you have 10,000 units on an incoming PO arriving in two months, enabling this setting tells the system to count those units as available now — so it won't flag a reorder gap in the meantime. This is particularly useful for sellers with large incoming quantities who don't want ETA gaps triggering unnecessary reorder recommendations.
5. Report Customization Options
You can customize the report display by clicking on the customize button, and configure these settings
Including or excluding items with zero reorder quantity.
Using visual indicators:
Reorder dates within 7 days appear in red.
Days of Stock Left under 7 days also show in red.
6. Understanding the Report Columns
Reorder Quantity — Number of units to order.
Reorder Date — When to place the next order.
Sales Velocity — Clickable average daily sales figure.
Total Inventory — Available Inventory + In Transit.
Available Inventory — Physically in stock and available to sell.
In Transit — Inventory currently in an In Transit type warehouse, like Inbound to FBA.
Reserved — Units allocated to unshipped orders.
Incoming — Quantity expected from open purchase orders (clickable).
Days of Stock Left — Based on current available inventory and sales velocity. Does not include incoming purchase orders.
7. Important Clarifications
This is not an FBA restock report. It is designed specifically as a replenishment and purchasing report for reordering from vendors.
For sellers using multiple warehouses or operating across regions, the report supports regional forecasts and non-sharing warehouse configurations.
Advanced Configuration Options
1. Warehouse Inclusion Settings
You can control whether a warehouse's inventory is included in the forecasting report's available inventory calculation. This is configured per warehouse.
For example, if you have an FBA Unsellable warehouse, you'll want to exclude it — since that inventory isn't available to sell and shouldn't factor into your reorder calculations.
To configure this, go to ConnectStock → Lists → Warehouses, open the warehouse, click on the warehouse settings tab, and toggle on Exclude from Restock.
2. Non-Sharing Warehouses
By default, all warehouses share inventory. However, some sellers have dedicated warehouses — like safety stock locations or isolated regional facilities — where inventory should not be commingled.
What it does: When a warehouse is set as non-sharing, its inventory will not be considered when calculating the needs of other warehouses.
Example: If Warehouse 1 is non-sharing and Warehouse 2 is running low, the system will recommend a reorder for Warehouse 2 — even if Warehouse 1 has plenty of stock.
How to enable:
Go to ConnectStock → Lists → Warehouses.
Open the specific warehouse and go to Warehouse Settings.
Enable the Non-Sharing option.
Important: Every in-transit type warehouse must be linked to a destination warehouse so the system knows where inbound inventory is going. This is especially important when regions are in use. You can set this on the in-transit warehouse settings page.
3. Regional Forecasting
Regions let you group warehouses into geographical or operational clusters for separate inventory calculations. This is especially useful when inventory should not be shared across countries or markets.
Use cases:
Separating U.S. and Canada inventory calculations.
Isolating Europe, Asia, or domestic vs. international stock.
Running different strategies for different distribution networks.
How to set up regions:
Go to Stores & Files → Inventory Files → File Settings → Forecasting Report.
Enable Regions.
All warehouses will be placed in a default region initially.
Assign each warehouse to its appropriate region on the warehouse settings page.
Once configured, the Inventory Forecasting Report will allow you to group and view inventory by region. Replenishment recommendations will be calculated per region, not globally. You can also configure non-sharing warehouses within regions for even tighter control.
Example Scenario
Let's say you have:
Warehouse A in the U.S.
Warehouse B in Canada
Warehouse C in Germany
You configure:
Regions: A & B in North America, C in Europe
Warehouse A set as non-sharing
Now, if Warehouse B is running low, the system will recommend a reorder — even if Warehouse A has excess stock — because A is non-sharing. Meanwhile, Warehouse C in Europe is treated as a completely separate group with its own velocity, buffer, and reorder logic.
See How to Create a Purchase Order from the Inventory Forecasting Report for step-by-step instructions.