The short answer
If one person plans a few suppliers and the workbook gets refreshed without errors, keep it. If the refresh takes most of a day, if lookups break when the export changes, or if seasonal stock keeps arriving late, POplanner does the same calculation from the same export with fewer steps.
Side by side
| Task | POplanner | Excel workbook |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly refresh | Drop in the export | Paste stock and sales, repair lookups |
| Column names | English, German, Dutch recognised | Must match the formulas exactly |
| Reorder point and cover | Per supplier and per item | Formulas you maintain |
| Carton and minimum order | Rounded automatically | Often done by hand |
| One-off spikes | Flagged, safe quantity suggested | Hidden inside the average |
| Stock-out months | Recognised and skipped | Counted as zero demand |
| Seasonal order-by dates | 14 events, sea and air | Not built in |
| Confidence per line | 0 to 100, with reasons | No |
| Custom analysis | Planner views and exports | Any formula you can write |
| Sharing | Team sign-in on your domain | File on a shared drive |
| Data location | Your browser | Your computer or drive |
| Price | [ Placeholder · not set ] | Already paid for |
What moves to POplanner
The repeatable part. Matching each item's stock, incoming orders and twelve months of sales. Working out months of cover against lead time plus safety stock. Rounding to cartons. Checking which items are out of catalog but still sell well.
POplanner also adds checks a workbook rarely has: a flag when one customer bought most of an item's volume, a safe quantity when a single month spiked, and a warning when a purchase price looks like a price per display.
What stays the same
Your ERP stays the source of truth, and you still place the orders. POplanner uses the ERP's available stock figure as it is and never changes it. The export you already make is the input.
When to keep the spreadsheet
- You plan fewer than a few hundred items and the workbook rarely breaks.
- You rely on custom formulas that no planning tool would match, such as contract-specific pricing.
- Your ERP cannot export monthly sales per item.