# Purchasing & Inventory Replenishment: done-for-you AI automation by BufferSol

> A done-for-you purchasing and inventory replenishment automation is an AI agent that reviews your stock levels, sales history, open purchase orders and supplier lead times each day, then drafts the purchase orders a buyer would have written. It respects minimum order quantities, case packs and budgets, explains every suggestion, and waits for a buyer to approve before sending anything to a supplier. BufferSol builds and runs it in your ERP, live in 3 to 6 weeks.

- Canonical: https://buffersoltech.com/done-for-you/automations/purchasing-inventory-replenishment
- Industries: E-commerce & Retail (Multi-location retail & franchises); Manufacturing & Distribution (Manufacturers)
- Provider: BufferSol Technologies (New York; serving the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and the EU)
- Timeline: live in 3 to 6 weeks
- Pricing: quoted after a short scoping call

## Reorder suggestions your buyers trust, drafted as POs every morning

**Who it is for:** Distributors, e-commerce brands, wholesalers and light manufacturers with hundreds to tens of thousands of SKUs whose buyers still plan reorders in spreadsheets exported from the ERP or Shopify.

### Signs you need it
- Buyers rebuild the same reorder spreadsheet every week from ERP or Shopify exports.
- Most items have no reorder point set, or the ones that exist were set years ago.
- You run out of best sellers while slow movers fill the warehouse.
- Stock is sometimes reordered twice because an open PO was missed.
- Supplier minimums and case packs are applied by hand after the math is done.

## Business outcomes
- **Fewer stockouts on top sellers.** Demand is read with stockout days removed, so items that sold out are not mistaken for slow sellers and get reordered in time.
- **Cash not tied up in slow stock.** Each suggestion weighs lead time, open supply and your target cover, so slow movers are bought in smaller, less frequent orders.
- **Buyers who trust the list.** Every suggested line shows why it was flagged, so buyers spend time on supplier terms and exceptions rather than checking arithmetic.

## How it works today
1. A buyer exports on-hand, on-order and sales by item from the ERP or Shopify into Excel.
2. They apply rough rules, such as weeks of cover or a fixed reorder point, by vendor and category.
3. They cross-check open POs and recent receipts by hand to avoid double ordering.
4. They round quantities to case packs and minimums from supplier price lists kept in email.
5. They key the purchase orders into the ERP and email PDFs to each supplier.

Hidden costs:
- Hours of buyer time each week spent rebuilding the same spreadsheet.
- Lost sales from stockouts on items whose demand was hidden by earlier stockouts.
- Working capital stuck in overstock because one rule was applied to fast and slow items alike.

## How it works done for you
1. Each night the agent reads on-hand, committed and on-order quantities, sales history and receipts from your ERP and storefronts.
2. It cleans demand by removing stockout days and one-off spikes, and measures real supplier lead times from PO and receipt dates.
3. It calculates a suggested quantity per item and location, then applies supplier minimums, case packs, price breaks and freight thresholds.
4. It ignores unreliable open supply, such as unapproved or late POs, and explains this in the suggestion.
5. It drafts purchase orders by supplier in the ERP, with a short reason for each line, and posts the batch to the buyer for review.
6. The buyer edits or approves; approved POs are sent to suppliers by email or portal, and budget limits are enforced before release.
7. All suggestions, edits and approvals are logged so the rules can be tuned each month.

## What changes for the team
- **Buyer.** Today: Rebuilds reorder spreadsheets and types purchase orders. Done for you: Reviews a ranked list of drafted POs, negotiates with suppliers and handles exceptions.
- **Operations or supply chain manager.** Today: Learns about stockouts from sales and overstock from the warehouse. Done for you: Sees cover, open supply and pending approvals in one place and adjusts targets by category.
- **Finance controller.** Today: Finds out about large purchase commitments after the POs are sent. Done for you: Sets spend limits the agent enforces and approves only the orders above them.

## KPIs we measure
- **Stockout days on top sellers:** Days at zero available stock for your top items by revenue, baselined from the prior quarter.
- **Weeks of cover by category:** On-hand plus reliable open supply divided by cleaned weekly demand, tracked weekly.
- **Buyer time per PO cycle:** Time from suggestion batch to approved POs, compared with the pre-launch spreadsheet process.
- **Suggestion acceptance rate:** Share of drafted lines approved without edits, reviewed monthly to tune rules.
- **Duplicate or emergency orders:** Count of expedited or double-placed POs per month, before and after launch.

## Industry data
- $1.7 trillion, equal to 6.2% of global retail sales: annual worldwide cost of inventory distortion (out-of-stocks plus overstocks), 2026 study ([IHL Group](https://www.ihlservices.com/product/inventory-distortion/))

## Systems it connects to
NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, SAP Business One, Acumatica, Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, Fishbowl, Microsoft Excel and SharePoint, Microsoft Outlook

## Guardrails
- No purchase order is sent to a supplier without a buyer's approval, and spend above your limits needs a second approver.
- The agent can draft POs but cannot change supplier terms, item costs or vendor master data.
- Each suggested line shows the demand, lead time, open supply and rule used, so any number can be checked.
- Changes to targets and rules are versioned and logged with who made them.
- Budgets and open-to-buy limits are checked before a batch is released.

## What teams say about this work
- Shopify merchants said spreadsheet reordering breaks down as SKU counts grow: one reorder rule fires too late for fast sellers, stockout days make best sellers look slow, and incoming POs get missed so stock is reordered twice. ([Shopify Community](https://community.shopify.com/t/681984))
- A merchant with hundreds of vendors and thousands of SKUs could not find any single report showing sales, on-hand and on-order together, so working out what to reorder each week had to be done by hand. ([Shopify Community](https://community.shopify.com/t/reports-to-help-manage-necessary-reorders/394317))
- NetSuite consultants warn that reorder searches which count every open PO as usable supply, or which buyers cannot see the reasons behind, lead to bad suggestions and alert fatigue. ([Versich](https://versich.com/blog/netsuite-saved-search-reorder-point-alerts-buyers-can-trust/))

## Delivery: live in 3 to 6 weeks
1. Week 1: discovery, access and a baseline of today's numbers.
2. Weeks 2–3: build the agents and connect your systems, with your rules and approvals.
3. Weeks 3–5: test on your real history, then pilot on live work with your team reviewing.
4. Weeks 4–6: staged go-live, training, dashboards and handover.

## Executive Ask questions for this workflow
- Which of our top sellers are at risk of running out in the next two weeks?
- How much cash is sitting in stock that has not sold in ninety days?
- Which purchase orders are waiting for approval, and what happens if we hold them?

## Frequently asked questions
### How long until it is running?
Typically 3 to 6 weeks. We start by connecting to your ERP and sales channels and measuring real lead times and demand. Then the agent produces suggestions alongside your buyers' own plan for a couple of cycles, so you can compare. Once buyers agree with the logic, it starts drafting purchase orders for approval.

### How is it priced?
We do not list prices, because the work depends on SKU count, number of locations and channels, and how your ERP is set up. Pricing is quoted after a short scoping call, where we review a data export and your current buying rhythm. You get a written scope and quote before we start building anything.

### Is this a forecasting tool?
It uses forecasting, but the job is wider. The agent turns demand, lead time, open supply and supplier rules into real draft purchase orders in your ERP, explains each line and handles the approval flow. Many clients already own a planning tool; the agent can read its forecast instead of building its own.

### Can it handle minimum order quantities and case packs?
Yes. Supplier minimums, case and pallet quantities, price breaks and free-freight thresholds are applied after the base quantity is calculated. Where rounding up would create too much stock, the agent says so and lets the buyer decide, rather than silently ordering more.

### Will it place orders on its own?
Only if you allow it, and only within limits you set. Most clients start with every PO needing buyer approval. Some later let routine reorders for trusted suppliers below a set value go out automatically, while anything new, large or unusual still waits for a person.