How to plan inventory purchases and avoid out-of-stock items
Prevent products from running out unexpectedly by using Poster tools to monitor stock levels, sales, and inventory purchases.
Keep track of stock levels and plan inventory purchases with Poster. Low stock notifications, ABC analysis, sales statistics, stocktaking, and the Inventory Movement Report help you replenish stock on time and avoid items becoming unavailable.
Set up low stock notifications
Poster can notify you when products are running low by email or directly on the POS.
In Settings → General in the back office, choose when to receive notifications: once after the shift is closed or every time a product's stock approaches its minimum level.
Then open Inventory → Stock and set a minimum stock level for the required products. Without this setting, Poster can't determine when a product is running low.
To let cashiers see current stock levels, install the Stock Notifications app. It displays the available quantity on the POS and automatically hides items that are out of stock.
Track your best-selling items with sales statistics
Open Reports → ABC analysis in the back office to identify your most popular and most profitable menu items.
In Reports → Products, review the number of sales for each product or recipe during the selected period.
Use this data to keep additional stock of your best-selling items while avoiding excess inventory for products with lower demand.
Perform regular stocktaking
Open Inventory → Inventory checks and create a new stocktaking.
Choose either:
- Full inventory to count all products in the warehouse.
- Partial inventory to count selected products or categories.
Regular stocktaking helps you detect inventory discrepancies early and prevents situations where products unexpectedly run out and become unavailable for sale.
Use the inventory movement report to plan purchases
Open Inventory → Ingredients movements to review how stock levels changed during the selected period. Use the search to find a specific product or ingredient category, and select the required date range using the calendar in the upper-right corner.
Analyze product consumption during regular business periods to estimate how much inventory you'll need for the following week.
Before holidays or seasonal peaks, compare the data with the same period last year or with a previous similar holiday. This helps you prepare enough stock in advance and avoid running out of popular items.
Use all inventory tools regularly
Poster doesn't create inventory purchases automatically. Instead, it provides the data you need to make purchasing decisions on time.
Review your stock levels, Inventory Movement Report, and sales statistics regularly. Before busy periods or holidays, analyze historical data in advance to forecast demand more accurately.
By using these tools consistently, you'll plan inventory purchases more effectively and reduce the chances of products becoming unavailable.