Who it is for
Companies that buy from suppliers and sell on to shops or businesses: wholesalers, distributors, importers and brands that run their own warehouse. It suits a team that plans a few hundred to a few thousand active items across several suppliers, with lead times measured in weeks or months, and that plans today in an ERP plus an Excel workbook.
The problem it solves
In most wholesale companies one buyer refreshes a purchase workbook every month. They paste the stock export, paste the sales, repair the lookups that broke, and then go through the lines by feel. The workbook knows nothing about the customer who bought a whole year's volume in one order, the three months an item was out of stock, or the fact that Christmas stock ordered by sea in October arrives in January.
The results are familiar: bestsellers run out while slow items fill the warehouse, seasonal goods arrive after the season, and the plan lives in one person's head.
What changes
| Before | With POplanner |
|---|---|
| A day of pasting and repairing formulas | Drop in the export. Columns are found by name, and the plan is ready on screen. |
| One average for every item, spikes included | One-off orders and stock-out months are kept out of the average. A safe quantity is suggested and marked for you to check. |
| Season dates worked out on a calendar, or missed | Order-by dates by sea and by air for 13 selling seasons, counted back from the shop shelf. |
| Quantities that are hard to explain | Every line shows its sum: sales per month, months to cover, stock already there, carton rounding. |
| Overstock found at the stocktake | Items with more than enough are marked before you add to them. |
| An order list retyped per supplier | One Excel file per supplier, in full cartons, most urgent lines first. |
| The method lives with one buyer | The rules are settings the team shares, with a reason on every line. |
| Status | Item | Months of stock | Order |
|---|
Where the money comes from
A purchase planner pays for itself in three ways, and you can check each one in your own figures.
- Cash not tied up. Every order tops up to a cover target instead of a round number, and items with plenty of stock are skipped. Compare the stock value after a POplanner order with the stock value after your usual order.
- Sales not lost. Items are reordered when their cover drops below lead time plus safety margin, so bestsellers are reordered before the shelf is empty. Count the stock-out months in last year's sales history.
- Seasons sold in season. Christmas, Valentine's and Easter stock is ordered by the sea date, or by air while there is still time. Unsold seasonal stock waits a full year or gets marked down.
The customer pages add a fourth: a list of bestsellers each shop doesn't stock yet, for your sales team to offer.
Why a buyer can trust it
POplanner suggests and you decide. Each quantity has a confidence score with reasons, every number can be changed, every rule change can be undone, and nothing is written back to your ERP. It uses your ERP's available stock as reported, so customer orders are never taken off twice.
Why a subscription
Purchasing is monthly work, so POplanner is a monthly plan. The subscription covers the app for your team with emailed sign-in codes, your company name on every screen and export, saved plans and PO tracker per person, new seasons and checks as they are added, and help setting up your first plan with your own export. Prices are being set now. Write to hi@poplanner.app or request a walkthrough to start.
When POplanner is not the right tool
- Your ERP can't export monthly sales per item.
- You sell made-to-order goods with no stock.
- You need production planning with bills of materials. POplanner plans the purchase of finished goods.