Investigate a stock-out

Audience

Warehouse managers, operations leads, buyers responding to a low-stock alert.

A stock-out can cascade — lost sales, frustrated customers, expedited shipping costs. The faster you understand the cause, the cheaper the recovery. BOS gets you from alert to action in a few minutes.

The flow

Alert fires (stock below reorder)
        │
        ▼
Warehouse agent contextualises: how big a problem? how fast burning?
        │
        ▼
Decide: expedite from supplier OR substitute OR notify affected customers
        │
        ▼
Execute the decision in PLANA Business Cloud (purchase, transfer, comm)

Step-by-step

1. Open the alert

You got an alert like:

Critical: SKU-2106 (Hex bolt M10) is out of stock

Click the alert. The detail panel shows:

• Current on-hand: 0
• Reorder point: 50
• Supplier: BulkCorp
• Supplier lead time: 7 days
• Last receipt: 3 weeks ago

2. Ask the Warehouse agent for context

In Chat → Warehouse:

SKU-2106 is out of stock. What's the demand picture and what's
expected to come in?

The agent returns:

SKU-2106 demand context:
  · Average daily consumption (last 90d): 12 units
  · Last 30 days: 380 units (steady)
  · Open sales orders waiting on this SKU: 4 orders, 65 units
  · Largest waiting order: ACME-2026-145 (45 units, customer Acme Corp)

Pending receipt: PO-2026-205, 200 units, expected 2026-06-05 from BulkCorp.

Bottom line: 4 customers waiting; replenishment in 6 working days; risk
of stockout impact on 1 large order (Acme).

3. Decide

Three common paths:

Path	When
Expedite from supplier	The waiting orders are valuable; lead-time delta is worth the rush cost
Substitute with an alternative SKU	A compatible product is available
Communicate with affected customers	The wait is short, expectations matter more than stock

4a. Expedite

Open the pending PO in PLANA Business Cloud (click the PO link in the agent's answer). Contact the supplier — often an email from inside Odoo asking for partial early shipment works.

Once the supplier commits to an earlier ETA, update the PO's expected date so the rest of the system reflects reality.

4b. Substitute

Ask the Warehouse agent:

Is there a compatible substitute for SKU-2106 in stock?

The agent looks at the product's tags and category for substitutes. If yes, propose the substitute to the affected customers (a discount may be needed for the inconvenience).

4c. Communicate

Ask the Sales agent (switch tab):

Which open sale orders are waiting on SKU-2106 and who is the
salesperson?

The agent returns the open orders with assigned salespeople. The salespeople should reach out to customers proactively — "we're running short, your order will ship on date X" is much better than silence.

5. Set follow-up

Mark the alert as Acknowledged with a note ("PO expedited, ETA 2026-06-02"). The alert re-fires if the situation hasn't improved by the cool-down period.

If you expect this product to be persistently tight, bump the reorder point in PLANA Business Cloud → Inventory → Reordering rules. A reorder point that fires too often becomes alert noise.

A weekly habit

Outside of acute stock-outs, run this on the Warehouse agent once a week:

Which products are at risk of stocking out in the next 14 days based
on current demand and pending receipts?

The agent compares average daily consumption to current on-hand minus pending sales orders, identifying upcoming risk. Lead time for new POs in Bulgaria is typically 5–10 days, so a 14-day look-ahead catches most situations before they become urgent.

Where to read more

• Warehouse agent
• Sales agent — for the customer side
• PLANA Business Cloud → Reordering rules
• Alerts view — what to do with the alerts feed