Stockouts lose revenue. Overstock locks up cash. Both are preventable with the right data. This tool forecasts 12 months of demand by SKU, calculates reorder points, and flags exactly which products will run out and when — before it happens.
Real inputs. Real outputs. See exactly what you get before you commit to anything.
This is a live preview of the Sales & Inventory Forecaster — the same tool available to all subscribers.
Subscribe to access →Every tool generates a downloadable PDF report — structured like a professional consultant's analysis, built from your actual data. Below is an example using dummy data.
A stockout is not just a missed sale. It is a missed sale, a disappointed customer, a potential lost account, and an operational scramble to source urgent stock — often at premium cost and through non-standard supply chains. For businesses with B2B customers, a stockout on a key line can also trigger penalty clauses, credit notes, or worse: the customer finding an alternative supplier who does not run out and staying with them.
The cost of a stockout is therefore not just the gross profit on the missed units. It is the gross profit on the missed units plus the cost of the emergency response plus the commercial risk to the customer relationship. For most product businesses, the true cost of a stockout is 2-5x the direct margin value of the missed sales.
Yet most SME product businesses manage inventory reactively — ordering when stock runs low, relying on supplier lead time estimates from memory, and absorbing stockouts as an occasional cost of doing business rather than a preventable failure. The Sales & Inventory Forecaster changes this.
Reorder point is the stock level at which a new order must be placed to ensure the next delivery arrives before existing stock runs out. The correct formula is: reorder point = (average daily demand × supplier lead time in days) + safety stock.
Safety stock is a buffer against uncertainty in both demand and supply. If your lead time varies by ±2 weeks, your safety stock should cover 2 weeks of average demand. If your demand has seasonal peaks that can double normal velocity, your safety stock calculation needs to reflect peak demand rather than average demand during high-risk periods.
For businesses with seasonal demand — retail, food and drink, gifts, garden, building materials, outdoor equipment — the period of highest revenue is also the period of highest stockout risk. Lead times from overseas suppliers are typically 6-10 weeks. This means that the stock required to serve November and December demand needs to be ordered in September or October at the latest.
The tool applies seasonal uplift factors by month, allowing you to model the demand acceleration that Q4 typically brings and plan purchasing accordingly. A business that starts seasonal planning in October is already 4-6 weeks behind a competitor who started in August.
Every unit of stock represents cash that has been spent but not yet recovered through sale. Working capital tied up in inventory is the single largest use of cash for most product businesses, and it is also the most controllable. Overstock on slow-moving lines is not just an operational problem — it is a financial one. Cash that is locked in unsold inventory cannot be used for other purposes: paying suppliers, funding growth, or managing cashflow through a difficult period.
The tool calculates total working capital tied up in current stock and tracks how this changes month by month as demand draws down inventory. This gives you the information to make deliberate decisions about stock levels rather than simply ordering to a habitual quantity.
The Sales & Inventory Forecaster is included in every LumixAI subscription. £19.99/month. 7-day free trial. Cancel any time.