Demand Planning
This is where you decide how to cover what customers have ordered but you can't ship from stock right now. When you accept an order and there isn't enough on the shelf to fill it, the gap doesn't get lost — it lands here, ready for you to act on. You look at everything that's short, decide for each item whether to buy it or make it, and then send out all the purchase orders and work orders in one go — without accidentally ordering the same thing twice.
This page explains the idea in plain terms. The step-by-step guides for each part are linked at the bottom.
Availability depends on your plan and your role.
What "demand" really means here
Think of demand as your to-do list of promises you can't keep from stock yet.
When a sales order is accepted, Bizconnekt first covers as much of it as it can from what's already on your shelves. Whatever is left over — the part you've promised but don't have — is the shortfall. That shortfall is what shows up in Demand Planning as demand.
So a customer order for more than you hold doesn't stall. The part you can ship is set aside for them, and the part you can't is handed to you here as a clear, named piece of work: this much of this item, for this order, still needs covering.
Nothing here has been ordered yet. Demand is simply the honest picture of the gap — it waits for your decision before anything leaves your business.
How you work through it
There are three moves, in order. Each has its own guide.
1. Review the demand
Before you decide anything, you look at what's short. The same demand can be read three different ways — all the demand for one item together, everything one customer is waiting on, or each piece traced back to the exact order it came from. Which view you pick depends on what you're about to do.
See The three ways to review demand.
2. Build a basket and decide buy or make
You pick the demand you want to act on now and gather it into a basket — a working list you curate before committing to anything. For each item you choose whether to buy it from a supplier or make it through production, and you can split a single item across more than one supplier.
See Building a basket.
3. Raise everything at once
When the basket is ready, you preview it, confirm the prices, and raise it. Out come the real documents — a purchase order for each supplier and a work order for each thing you're making — every one linked back to the customer order that created the demand. Raising in one go is what stops the same item being ordered twice.
See Raising the orders.
Buy or make — a quick word
For every short item you're choosing one of two paths:
| Choice | What it does |
|---|---|
| Buy | Creates a purchase order to a supplier. You can split the quantity across several suppliers, and have a supplier ship straight to your customer (a drop-ship) instead of to you. |
| Make | Creates a work order so the item is produced through its own production route. Use this for anything you build rather than purchase. |
You don't have to treat a whole order one way. One customer order can end up as some items bought, some made, and one item split between two suppliers — all raised together.
See it end to end
If it's easier to follow as a story, walk through a single order from shortfall to raised documents:
A worked scenario: covering an order shortfall.
Related guides
- Sales Orders — where demand is born when an order can't be filled from stock
- Stores & Inventory — what's on hand, reserved and available, and why a shortfall happens
- Purchase Order — the buy-side document raising a basket produces
- Work Order — the make-side document raising a basket produces
- Building a basket — curate demand and choose buy or make
- Raising the orders — preview, confirm prices and raise everything at once
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