Inventory Replenishment

Purpose

Inventory Replenishment builds dated stock projections for product/location policies, showing demand, supply, forecast consumption, safety stock, shortages and excess. It recommends sourcing or changes to existing supply and retains the records behind each projection.

Calculation produces planning records. Approved execution can create draft transfers, RFQs or manufacturing orders, change eligible existing supply, or create a follow-up activity, depending on the action type. Review the action itself before executing it.

Before you start

Install the matching package with Inventory, Purchase/Inventory, Manufacturing, Sales/Inventory and Mail (stock, purchase_stock, mrp, sale_stock, mail). No Enterprise-only dependency is declared.

Prepare accurate stock quantities, reservations, dated stock moves, units, vendors, bills of materials and warehouse operation types. Planning uses native stock moves and explicit demand signals. An unconfirmed RFQ without stock moves is not automatically counted as incoming stock. Lot expiry filtering is available when the native expiration field exists; the app does not install the expiration feature itself.

This guide describes the 19.0 source workflow. Other listed releases received selected comparisons. No planning run or document creation was executed for this guide.

Access and setup

Inventory Planner provides planning access and inherits Inventory user access. Inventory Planning Manager adds policy, source-rule and scenario maintenance and inherits Inventory manager access. Approval and execution require the planning-manager role. Native Purchase and Manufacturing permissions are still needed to create their documents.

Use a planning manager to calculate the worked flow below, since calculation updates policy statistics. A different planning manager must approve the resulting plan: the person who calculated a run cannot approve it, and the recommendation creator cannot approve that recommendation. Company and location rules continue to apply.

Open Inventory → Planning Control → Configuration → Item-Location Policies. Create one policy per product, location and company. Set warehouse, bucket size, horizon, safety-stock method, reorder point, coverage targets, quantity limits and order/package/pallet multiples. Start with Fixed Quantity or Planner Entered when there is insufficient movement history for a statistical buffer.

Choose Purchase, Manufacture, Internal Transfer, or Best Available Source. Configure vendors, preferred transfer sources and lead times. Under Source Rules, rank alternatives and set capacity, quantity limits, cost and reliability. Rules sort by lower priority number, shorter lead time, lower cost, higher reliability, then record ID. Review the chosen source and rejected alternatives on each recommendation.

Workflow

1. Add any intended Demand Signals, including dates, product, exact location, type and quantity. Forecast signals are consumed by native demand within each bucket; other signal types add demand.
2. Select Run Planning, choose company, dates/horizon and policies, and run a full calculation. Leaving policies empty selects active company policies. Incremental planning uses the changed-item queue when items are claimed.
3. Review Time-phased Projection. Opening availability subtracts reserved quantities; eligible expiring stock is excluded. The planning floor is the greater of safety stock and reorder point. Review the source records under Demand and Supply Pegging before interpreting a shortage.
4. Inspect Exceptions even when the run is calculated. An individual policy can fail while other policies produce results. Resolve missing data or access failures and recalculate as needed.
5. Review Action Messages, including quantity, proposed date, source, vendor, rationale and rejected alternatives. Shortage recommendations can coexist with suggestions to advance incoming supply; choose the appropriate response rather than assuming every recommendation should execute.
6. Select Submit for Review. A different planning manager reviews and selects Approve Plan, or approves suitable actions individually. A changed source or policy can mark an action stale; recalculate before proceeding.
7. Use Execute Approved Actions or Create Draft Supply on an approved action. For create-transfer, purchase and manufacturing actions, inspect the resulting draft through Open Result, then follow the native confirmation workflow. For advance/postpone or other existing-supply actions, execution may alter that existing record instead.
8. Review each action’s state and error message. A run returns to review if its selected actions did not all execute. Use Inventory Planning Executive Summary from the run’s Print menu when a PDF summary is needed.

Scenarios and recurring calculations

Under Scenarios, a manager can model demand and safety-stock factors, supplier delay, warehouse closures and scenario-specific signals. Select Calculate Scenario to inspect the simulated results. Scenario recommendations cannot execute operational documents.

A different manager approves the scenario. Apply Signals copies its signals into live demand; it does not apply every simulation factor to configuration or execute the simulated orders. Run and review a new live plan afterward.

The installed scheduled action Inventory Planning: Process Changed Items runs every 15 minutes to calculate queued changes. Calculation does not automatically approve or execute replenishment. Do not rely on automation-level labels as permission for unattended order creation; the reviewed execution path requires manager approval and execution.

Practice scenario

In an authorised test database, fictional East Depot has 5 unreserved units, a fixed safety stock of 10, no incoming supply and an explicit future demand signal of 8. Configure a purchase source and run planning for that product/location. Inspect the expected shortage, proposed rounded quantity and vendor. Have a second manager approve the chosen action and inspect the resulting draft RFQ before native confirmation. This source-derived scenario was not executed.

Troubleshooting and limitations

For no feasible source, check vendor data, the manufacturing bill of materials, transfer availability and source capacity. Transfer selection protects fixed or manually entered safety stock at a source policy and deducts allocations already made in that run; it is not a full optimisation across all future warehouse needs.

Projection supply labels should be checked against pegged records: the calculation includes non-cancelled, unfinished native moves within its dates, not only a single confirmed state. Draft document creation does not reserve stock, confirm purchases or manufacture goods.

Freshness checks cover recorded planning inputs; they are not a substitute for reviewing current availability and native document constraints. A failed execution retains its error for correction. Recalculate a current recommendation instead of forcing its state or treating an old plan as guaranteed supply.

Versions and useful links

Qualified catalogue versions are 15.0, 16.0, 18.0, 19.0 and 20.0; 17.0 source exists without a qualified live-demo pair here. Versions 15–16 use older completed-quantity fields. Earlier purchase creation uses the product purchase unit; 19.0 uses the selected supplier’s unit. Version 20 adapts unit fields and access definitions. Selected comparisons do not establish equivalent runtime behaviour.

Live Test — Odoo 19.0 · Choose your exact Odoo version in the Corvus catalogue.

Related guides: Stock Transfer Approvals and Manufacturing Cost & WIP.