Stock Intelligence Tutorial

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What's inside

Stock Intelligence answers the questions every stock-keeping business asks: Is my inventory healthy? What's tying up cash? How much will I sell? When and how much should I order? — using proven inventory maths, with the formula shown for every number.

💯 One health score

A single 0–100 grade for your whole inventory, so you know at a glance if action is needed. See it →

🔎 Know your winners & dead weight

ABC/XYZ classes, dead stock, slow stock, aging and stockout risk — sort your catalogue by what matters.

🔮 Forecast demand

SMA, WMA and seasonal methods, each with an accuracy score so you know how far to trust it.

🛒 Reorder with confidence

Reorder point, safety stock and economic order quantity tell you exactly when and how much to buy.

📖 Plan from future orders

The Order Book nets open customer and supplier orders into net-available stock, with a buy-by date per product.

✅ Raise the purchase order

Turn recommendations into a draft supplier order in Dolibarr with one click. See it →

Also inside: email alerts, multi-warehouse planning, multi-company support, four languages, and CSV export on every view.

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Getting Started

Three settings and one Save. The module reads your existing Dolibarr data — it never changes your products, stock, or orders. It is completely read-only and safe.

First-time setup

Enable the module

Go to Home → Setup → Modules, find Stock Intelligence, and switch it on. It then appears in the left sidebar under Products | Services → Stock Intelligence.

Choose your Data Source

Open Stock Intelligence → Settings. Pick what counts as "demand":

Customer Orders — captures demand the moment a customer commits, even before invoicing. Best for most businesses.
Customer Invoices — counts demand only once billed. Best if your orders change a lot after they are created.

Set your Analysis Period

How far back to look. 12 months suits a stable business; 6 months reacts faster if your demand changes quickly.

Click Save

That's it. Open the Dashboard to see your first results. You can fine-tune the other settings later — see the Settings section.

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Safe by design. Stock Intelligence only writes to its own two tables (its settings and its alert log). It reads everything else. Nothing leaves your server, and no core data is ever modified.

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1. Dashboard

Why it matters: one screen tells you if your inventory is healthy or needs attention — before you dig into details. Open it first thing each week.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Dashboard

Stock Intelligence dashboard: Inventory Health Score gauge and KPI value tiles — The Dashboard — Health Score, value tiles (including Total Stock Value) and charts. A warehouse selector scopes it to a single site.

Inventory Health Score (0–100, grade A+ to F)

A single number for the overall health of your stock. Higher is better. It is the average of four equally-weighted parts (25% each):

🚨 Stockout Risk

How many products are close to running out. Fewer at-risk products raises the score.

🪦 Dead Stock

How much stock hasn't sold in a long time. Less dead stock raises the score.

🔄 Inventory Turnover

How quickly stock sells and is replaced. Faster turnover raises the score.

📦 Stock Coverage

Whether stock levels match demand — not too little, not too much. A healthy balance raises the score.

Grade	A+	A	B	C	D	F
Score	90–100	80–89	70–79	60–69	50–59	Below 50

Aim for 70+ (Grade B or better). A low score means one or more of the four parts needs attention — the charts below tell you which.

The three charts

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Demand Trend

A line showing total demand month by month. Rising line = growing demand; plan more stock. Falling line = slowing down.

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ABC Distribution

A pie showing how your products split into A, B, and C classes by revenue. Usually a small slice (A) drives most of the money.

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Stock Health Overview

Bars counting products that are Healthy, Slow, Dead, or at Stockout risk. Tall Dead/Stockout bars mean action needed.

Dashboard charts: demand trend line, ABC distribution pie and stock-health bars — The three charts — 12-month demand trend, ABC distribution and stock-health overview.

Quick stat tiles

Total Stock Value

€ tied up in all stock

Dead Stock Value

€ tied up in dead stock

Overstock Value

€ tied up in excess stock

Stockout Risk Count

Products close to running out

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How to read it: the value tiles turn cash you can't see into a number. Total Stock Value is what your whole inventory is worth. Of that, high Dead Stock Value = money frozen in things that don't sell (discount or clear them), and high Overstock Value = money frozen in things you bought too much of (slow down buying).

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Per-warehouse view. A warehouse selector at the top of the Dashboard scopes stock value, aging and counts to a single warehouse — or leave it on All warehouses for the whole company. See the Multi-warehouse section.

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2. Inventory Intelligence

Why it matters: not every product deserves equal attention. These seven views sort your catalogue so you protect the winners, clear the losers, and spot risk early.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Inventory Intelligence — pick a sub-tab across the top.

ABC-XYZ matrix classifying products by revenue value and demand predictability — The ABC-XYZ matrix — value (ABC) meets predictability (XYZ). Services are excluded automatically.

📄 Every view has a formula card (so you can see exactly how a number was worked out) and an Export CSV button (opens straight in Excel).

📦 Products only. Every analysis looks at stockable products and automatically excludes services — they have no stock, cost basis or lead time, so including them would only distort the numbers.

① ABC Analysis — find your money-makers

Ranks products by how much revenue they bring in, then splits them into three classes. The classic "80/20" rule made visual.

A — top 80% of revenue. Your critical few. Never let these run out.

B — next 15%. Important, watch regularly.

C — the rest. Many products, little revenue. Keep lean.

Class = based on cumulative revenue share. A ≤ 80%, then B ≤ 95%, rest = C. (Thresholds are configurable in Settings.)

② XYZ Analysis — how predictable is demand?

Measures how steady each product's demand is from month to month, using the coefficient of variation (a simple "bumpiness" measure — how much sales jump around compared to their average).

X — stable, easy to forecast. Trust the numbers.

Y — variable, some ups and downs. Keep a buffer.

Z — erratic, hard to predict. Order carefully.

CV = standard deviation of monthly demand ÷ average monthly demand. Low CV = X, high CV = Z. (Cut-offs configurable in Settings.)

③ ABC-XYZ Matrix — value meets predictability

Combines the two above into a 3×3 grid. It tells you where to spend your management effort.

	X (stable)	Y (variable)	Z (erratic)
A (high value)	AX — best: automate ✓	AY — watch closely	AZ — tricky, keep buffer
B	BX	BY	BZ
C (low value)	CX	CY	CZ — worst: minimise

AX = high value + predictable → the ideal, safe to keep well-stocked. CZ = low value + unpredictable → hold as little as possible.

④ Dead Stock

Products with no movement for N days (default 90). Shows the € value stuck in each. Clear or discount these to free up cash.

No sale/movement in last N days → Dead. Value = stock × cost.

⑤ Slow Stock

Products with fewer than N movements over the period. Not dead yet, but sluggish. Review before reordering.

Movements in period < threshold → Slow.

⑥ Stock Aging

Days since stock last arrived (inbound), per warehouse. Old stock ties up cash and may expire or become obsolete.

Age = today − date of last inbound movement.

⑦ Stockout Risk — what's about to run out

Gives each product a Risk Score — roughly, how many "lead times" of stock you have left. A low score means you'll run out before a new order can arrive.

Risk Score = Current Stock ÷ (Average Daily Consumption × Lead Time)

Current Stock — how many units you have now.
Average Daily Consumption — how many you use/sell per day, on average.
Lead Time — days from placing an order to receiving it.

A score below the threshold (set in Settings) flags the product as at-risk. Score under 1.0 means you'll likely stock out before replenishment lands.

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3. Demand Forecasting

Why it matters: knowing how much you'll likely sell next month lets you order the right amount — not too much, not too little. The module offers several tried-and-tested methods and tells you how accurate each has been.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Demand Forecasting. See a bulk list of all products, or click one for a detail view with its monthly history chart — up to 24 months of history (set in Settings).

Demand forecast detail with monthly history chart, forecast value and SMA formula — Forecast detail — monthly history with the forecast value, method (SMA/WMA) and accuracy (MAPE) shown.

Simple Moving Average (SMA)

Averages the last few months equally. Best for steady products.

Weighted Moving Average (WMA)

Like SMA, but recent months count more. Reacts faster to change.

Seasonal Index

Twelve monthly factors that capture busy and quiet seasons (e.g. December spikes). Great for seasonal goods.

Forecast Accuracy (MAPE)

Shows the average % error of past forecasts. Lower is better. Under 20% is good; over 50% means demand is hard to predict.

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Blended forecast mode

Turn this on in Settings → Forecast Basis = Blended. Now the coming month's forecast can never fall below the real customer orders already booked for that month.

If history suggests 40 units but you already hold signed orders for 60, the forecast becomes 60 — labelled +Book so you know it was lifted by real orders. This stops you under-buying when demand is already committed.

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Good to know: forecasting works best with 3+ months of history. New products with little history will show low confidence — lean on the Order Book instead (next section).

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4. Reorder Planning

Why it matters: answers the two hardest buying questions — when to reorder and how much. It uses proven inventory maths so you don't have to guess.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Reorder Planning (sub-tabs: Reorder Plan, BOM Explosion).

Reorder planning table with Reorder Point, Safety Stock, EOQ and suggested quantities — Reorder Planning — Reorder Point, Safety Stock and EOQ, with the formula behind every number.

Reorder Point (ROP) — when to order

The stock level that triggers a new order. When you hit it, order — the remaining stock should last exactly until the new delivery arrives.

ROP = Average Daily Demand × Lead Time + Safety Stock

Average Daily Demand — units used per day.
Lead Time — days to receive an order.
Safety Stock — extra buffer for surprises (below).

Safety Stock — your buffer

A cushion that absorbs unexpected demand spikes or supplier delays. More buffer = fewer stockouts but more cash tied up.

Safety Stock = Z × σ(daily demand) × √Lead Time

Z — a number from your chosen service level (80–99%). Higher service level = higher Z = bigger buffer = fewer stockouts.
σ (sigma) — how bumpy daily demand is (its standard deviation).
√Lead Time — longer, riskier lead times need more buffer.

Two ways to set the buffer (Settings → Safety Stock Basis)

Statistical (default) — the formula above works out the buffer for you from your own demand pattern.
Stock alert threshold — use each product's Dolibarr Stock limit for alert as the buffer instead. Here a threshold of 0 means "never stock" — the product is never suggested for reorder. Products with no threshold fall back to the statistical value.

Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) — how much to order

The order size that keeps total costs lowest — balancing the cost of placing orders against the cost of holding stock.

EOQ = √( 2 × D × S ÷ H )

D — annual demand (units per year).
S — cost of placing one order (admin, delivery).
H — cost of holding one unit for a year (storage, capital).

Order too often → high ordering costs. Order huge batches → high holding costs. EOQ finds the sweet spot.

BOM Explosion — for manufacturers

If you build products from parts, this "explodes" a finished-goods requirement down to every raw material needed, following sub-assemblies recursively. Requires Dolibarr's MRP / BOM module to be enabled.

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Reorder points you can trust

✓ The plan uses Net Available stock (see the Order Book section), not just what's physically on the shelf — so you don't double-order things already on their way, or ignore stock already promised to customers.
✓ It also respects each product's own Dolibarr alert threshold. If you've set a minimum on a product, the reorder point never drops below it.
✓ When a single warehouse is selected, both the on-hand stock and the demand behind the reorder point come from that warehouse's own throughput — so each site is planned on its own numbers. See the Multi-warehouse section.

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Forward-demand planning

5. Order Book

Why it matters: most tools plan buying from your past sales. The Order Book plans from your future — the open customer orders you've already signed but not yet delivered. Perfect for project, installation, and build-to-order businesses, where a signed order for next month matters far more than last year's history.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Order Book

Order Book showing on-hand, on-order, committed, net available and buy-by dates — The Order Book — on-hand netted against open orders into Net Available, with a buy-by date per product.

The key idea: Net Available stock

Physical stock on the shelf can lie. Some is already promised to customers; more is already on its way from suppliers. Net Available is the honest number — what you can truly still sell or use:

Net Available = On Hand + On Order − Committed

On Hand

Units physically in your warehouse right now.

+ On Order

Units on open supplier orders — bought but not yet received.

− Committed

Units on open customer orders — promised but not yet shipped.

The KPI strip (top of the page)

Products in Order Book

Items with open orders

Products Needing Action

Will fall short

Committed Units

Total promised to customers

Earliest Buy-By

Your most urgent deadline

The bulk table — read it left to right

Rows are sorted by urgency; the most urgent (highlighted) sit at the top. Here's an illustrative example:

Ref	Label	On Hand	On Order	Committed	Net Avail.	Next Delivery	Shortfall	Buy-By
PMP-200	Water pump	4	0	18	−14	05 Aug	14	22 Jul ⚠
CBL-6	6 mm cable	120	200	260	−60	18 Aug	60	04 Aug
SW-32	32 A switch	50	0	30	20	—	0	—

Net Available — the honest figure. Negative (red) = you've promised more than you can supply.
Next Delivery — the earliest date a customer is expecting their goods.
Shortfall — how many units short you'll be. This is what you need to buy.

Buy-By date — the star column

Buy-By = Delivery Date − Lead Time

The last day you can place the order and still receive it in time to deliver. Miss it and you'll be late. Rows past or near their Buy-By are highlighted.

Per-product detail: the time-phased projection

Click any product to see its future month by month, for the next N months (horizon set in Settings). For each month it shows incoming supply, committed demand, and where your stock lands — flagging the month it goes negative, with a matching chart.

Month	Incoming Supply	Committed Demand	Projected On-Hand
Start	—	—	4
July	0	18	−14 ⚠ goes negative
August	20	0	6
September	0	3	3

How to read it: follow the "Projected On-Hand" column down. The first month it turns red is the month you'll run out — order in time to fill that gap.

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Set delivery dates. The Order Book needs your customer orders to have a Delivery date (Dolibarr's order field). Orders with no date are treated as due now, so they'll always look urgent.

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Export CSV to hand the whole plan to your buyer, or to build purchase orders. Works even with no sales history — it reads live open orders.

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6. Order Now (Purchase Recommendations)

Why it matters: the shortest path from "what's low" to "purchase order". It lists every product below its reorder point, grouped by supplier, so you can raise one order per supplier in minutes.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Purchase Recommendations

Order Now recommendations grouped by supplier, each with a Create draft PO button — Order Now — what to buy, grouped by supplier, each group with a one-click **Create draft PO**.

✓ Products below their reorder point, grouped by supplier and sorted by urgency.
✓ Each line shows a suggested order quantity, unit price, and estimated cost — so you can see the spend before committing.
✓ A separate "No Supplier Assigned" table lists products that need one — assign a supplier in Dolibarr and they'll group correctly next time.
✓ Uses Net Available stock, so recommendations account for goods already on order or already promised.
✓ Export to CSV for your purchasing team.

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Create a purchase order in one click

Each supplier group has a Create draft PO button. Click it and the module builds a draft supplier order in Dolibarr, pre-filled with the recommended products, quantities, and that supplier's prices — no re-typing, no copy-paste.

1. Review the group

Check the suggested quantities and cost for one supplier.

2. Click Create draft PO

A draft supplier order appears in Dolibarr, ready and populated.

3. You validate & send

Nothing is sent automatically. You review, adjust and approve it yourself.

Safe: creating a PO only ever produces a draft — no email is sent and no stock moves. The button appears only for users who hold Dolibarr's supplier-order create permission.

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Order Now vs Order Book: use Order Now for routine replenishment driven by reorder points. Use the Order Book when specific signed customer orders drive your buying. Many businesses check both.

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7. Multi-Warehouse Planning

Why it matters: stock in one location tells you nothing about another. If you run more than one warehouse, you need to plan each on its own stock and its own demand — not a company-wide blur.

Where: a warehouse selector on the Dashboard, Reorder Plan, Order Now and Stock Aging.

Reorder plan with the warehouse selector scoping figures to a single warehouse — The warehouse selector — plan a single site on its own stock and its own demand, or leave it on *All warehouses*.

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Pick one warehouse

Choose a single warehouse and every figure — on-hand stock, net available, stock value and aging — narrows to just that site. Or leave it on All warehouses for the whole company.

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Per-warehouse demand, too

With a warehouse selected, the reorder plan and Order Now base demand on that warehouse's own outbound stock movements — so a busy hub and a quiet depot are each planned on their real throughput, not a shared average.

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Good to know: catalogue-wide analyses that aren't location-specific — ABC/XYZ classification and the demand forecast — stay company-wide and are labelled as such, so you always know which scope a number belongs to.

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8. Alerts

Why it matters: problems find you instead of you hunting for them. Get an email when something needs attention — no need to log in every day.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Alerts

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Stockout Risk

Warns when products are about to run out. Prevents lost sales.

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Dead Stock

Flags stock that isn't selling, with its € value. Easiest win to act on.

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Reorder Reminder

Reminds you what's due for reordering, so nothing slips.

Setting up an alert (per type)

Enable the alert type you want.

Pick a frequency — daily or weekly.

Enter a recipient list — one or more emails (e.g. buyer@co.com, manager@co.com).

Click Test-send to confirm the email arrives, then Save.

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Make them automatic: alerts are sent by a scheduled job. Add scripts/cron_alerts.php as a Dolibarr scheduled job (cron) so emails go out on their own. No spam — if there's nothing to report, no email is sent.

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9. Settings (23 parameters)

Everything is tunable, but the defaults work well. Change these only when you understand your own numbers better than the averages. Grouped below for easy reference.

Menu: Stock Intelligence → Settings

Data & period

Data Source — Customer Orders or Invoices.
Analysis Period — how many months of history to use.

Classification thresholds

ABC — A% — revenue cut-off for Class A (default 80).
ABC — A+B% — combined cut-off for A+B (default 95).
XYZ — X CV — max bumpiness for stable X items.
XYZ — Y CV — max bumpiness for variable Y items.

Dead & slow stock

Dead stock days — no movement for this long = dead (default 90).
Slow stock threshold — fewer than this many movements = slow.
Slow stock days — the window those movements are counted over.

Forecasting

SMA period — months averaged for Simple Moving Average.
WMA period — months averaged for Weighted Moving Average.
Forecast history window — up to 24 months of history shown on the forecast graph.

Reorder economics

Service level — target % of demand met from stock (80–99). Higher = bigger safety buffer.
Order cost — cost of placing one order (the "S" in EOQ).
Holding cost % — yearly cost of holding stock, as % of value (the "H").
Default lead time — days from order to delivery when no product-specific value exists.
Safety stock basis — statistical formula, or each product's Dolibarr alert threshold.
Reorder on-order horizon — how far ahead an incoming supplier order still counts as covering a need.

Risk

Stockout risk threshold — Risk Score below this flags a product as at-risk.

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Forward-planning controls

Stock Basis — Auto net (use Net Available) or Physical only (on-hand shelf stock).
Forecast Basis — Historical (from past sales) or Blended (floored by booked orders).
Order Book Horizon — how many months ahead the projection looks.
Supplier Order Statuses — which supplier-order statuses count as "on order" (default 3,4 = approved & ordered).

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Export to CSV

Every analysis view has an Export CSV button. Files are Excel-friendly and UTF-8 encoded, so accents and symbols display correctly. Use them to share with management, feed a spreadsheet, or build purchase orders.

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Languages

The whole module is available in English, French, Spanish, and German. It follows your Dolibarr user language automatically — no separate setting needed.

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Multi-Company

Fully compatible with Dolibarr's multi-company module. Every analysis — dashboard, forecasting, reorder planning and the Order Book — scopes strictly to the active entity, so each company sees only its own data.

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FAQ & Good to Know

Is it safe? Can it break my data?

Safe. The module is read-only against your core Dolibarr data. It only writes to its own two tables (its settings and its alert log). It never changes products, stock, or orders.

Does any data leave my server?

No. Everything runs locally on your Dolibarr instance. There are no external API calls. Email alerts use your own configured mail server.

What do I need for it to work?

Dolibarr's Products and Stock modules must be enabled. Database must be MySQL or MariaDB — PostgreSQL is not supported. The BOM Explosion view additionally needs Dolibarr's MRP module.

How much history do I need?

Forecasting works best with 3+ months of order or invoice history. The Order Book needs no history at all — it reads your open customer orders, so it's ideal for new products and project businesses.

Why do all my Order Book rows look urgent?

Your customer orders probably have no Delivery date set. Undated demand is treated as due now. Add delivery dates to your orders in Dolibarr and the urgency and Buy-By dates become accurate.

I see "No data available" everywhere

Check your Data Source and Analysis Period in Settings, and make sure you have orders or invoices in that window. Ensure Products and Stock modules are enabled.