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Build and maintain an order plan

Use Order plan to collect the items and quantities you intend to buy, review the sourcing proposal, and create draft purchase orders. You can build the plan directly in its grid or add an item while reviewing Inventory, a material, or a supplier.

An order plan is saved purchasing intent. Entering a quantity does not increase inventory, reserve a delivery, or send an order to a supplier. Those steps happen later through purchase orders and receiving.

Before you begin

Make sure the items exist as materials, the receiving locations are active, and the suppliers you want to use have linked products with the correct units and prices. Review stock quantities and any incoming supply before deciding what to order.

The plan uses a material's base unit for the quantity you enter. For example, if Kraft mailer (MAILER-KR6) is stocked in each and Northwind Packaging supplies cases of 24 each, enter 72 when you intend to buy 72 each. The proposal converts that requirement to the supplier's units. See Configure units, packs and barcodes.

Enter quantities in the grid

  1. Open Order plan from the app navigation.
  2. Search by product name or SKU. Use the material-type tabs or filters such as No supplier, Low stock, and Out of stock to narrow the list.
  3. Expand a material when necessary to see its individual locations. Check On hand, Available, and Inbound for the destination you intend to replenish.
  4. Enter the amount to buy in Order quantity for that location. Click or tab out of the field to save the change. Wait for the update to finish before making another decision about that row.
  5. Review Source. A supplier may already be selected from the available sourcing options. Choose a different supplier when appropriate, and open the explanation beside the selector to inspect the recommendation and its assumptions.
  6. Review Required by. Zapstra Inventory Management can derive a date from the supplier's lead time. If it cannot, the date remains blank and the app asks you to check the lead-time information. Enter the required date yourself when your purchasing deadline differs.
  7. Choose Add a note or Edit note in the Notes column, enter the note, then select Save.

The grid saves quantity and date edits as you leave the field, and saves a source when you change it. Notes have their own Save action. There is no separate whole-plan Save action. If the working plan cannot load, the grid becomes read-only; refresh before trying to add the same quantities elsewhere.

Selecting rows only filters the grid. It does not select which rows will become purchase orders. Preview & apply considers every saved row with purchasing intent, including rows hidden by filters.

Add an item from Inventory

While reviewing an item in Inventory, open Add or update order plan. Check the Available, Inbound, and Planned quantities together, choose the destination if prompted, and enter the total amount you want on the plan. Confirm with Add to order plan.

The quantity field starts from the amount already planned, or is blank when nothing is planned. It is not automatically filled with the suggested shortage. If 72 each are already planned and you change the field to 48 each, the intended result is a plan for 48 each, not an additional 48 each.

After confirmation, View plan opens the plan for review. Undo can reverse that addition or change while the affected row has not changed again. If Undo is refused because the row changed, inspect the current plan before editing it.

Order quantities and stock targets

An Order quantity says how much you have decided to purchase. A stock target says how much stock you want to reach after considering existing supply. They answer different questions.

For example, a target of 120 each with 35 each available and 24 each already on order leaves a gap of 61 each. You might review that gap and place 61 each of purchasing intent on the plan; the supplier's case size then produces a proposal for 3 cases, or 72 each. Do not enter 120 as an order quantity if your intention is to replenish to a total of 120.

Configure ongoing thresholds through Set stock targets and choose replenishment sources. The plan's record view can also show Target quantity rows. If a stock-level rule prevents an ordinary quantity edit, open the record and review it; do not repeatedly add the item from another screen.

Revise, remove, and revisit a plan

Change a grid quantity and leave the field to save the replacement amount. Clearing an existing quantity from the grid removes that row. For an explicit row review, open My sheets, select the draft, and use the Rows tab. Edit opens its quantity, date, location, and notes; Delete asks you to confirm removal.

Use Clear all only when you intend to remove every entered quantity from the working plan. Its confirmation applies to the whole plan, not just the filtered view. My sheets also provides access to drafts and Applied & archived records. Applied plans are read-only, and their Applications tab links to the purchase orders they created.

If a duplicate-row warning appears, review and remove the unwanted rows before applying. Some duplicates may not fit into the grid's single visible position, but can still contribute to the proposal.

For a finished good with a Build source, the quantity represents planned output and the purchasing proposal covers its components. This does not create or complete production. Review the bill of materials and follow Plan a production order and reserve components for the build itself.

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