Replenishment Recommendations
Read and act on the supplier reorder and transfer recommendations Profit Hawk generates from your forecasts and inventory data.
Replenishment recommendations are the practical output of Profit Hawk's forecasting engine. They tell you which products need a new supplier order, which need to be transferred from a warehouse to FBA, how many units to send, and by when. This page covers what each number means and how to act on it.
Where recommendations show up
You will see replenishment recommendations in three places:
| Location | What you get |
|---|---|
| Inventory Overview | One row per product with reorder and transfer recommendations as columns |
| Dashboard | Summary counts and per-supplier or per-warehouse cards |
| Product detail page | Full breakdown for one product, including the math behind the recommendation |
The Inventory Overview is the main workspace. The Dashboard is where you start your day; the product detail page is where you investigate a specific recommendation.
The two types of recommendations
Supplier reorders
A supplier reorder is a recommendation to place a new order with a supplier. It triggers when projected inventory (FBA + inbound + warehouse) will run below your min days of stock target before a fresh order can land.
The columns on the Inventory Overview Suggested Supplier Reorders group:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Order Qty | Recommended units to order, rounded to MOQ and case quantity |
| Order By | The latest date you can place the order to avoid a stockout, working backward by total lead time from the projected stockout date |
| Est. Cost | Estimated total cost (order qty × manufacturing cost) |
| Urgency | Critical, Soon, Planned, OK, or Not Needed based on how close to the deadline you are |
| Est. Profit | Estimated profit from selling through the recommended order quantity |
| Est. Arrival | Projected date the order arrives in FBA, calculated as order date + total lead time |
Transfer orders
A transfer order is a recommendation to move existing inventory from a warehouse, 3PL, or AWD into FBA. It triggers when FBA inventory will run below the floor before warehouse inventory could be transferred in.
The Suggested Transfer Orders columns:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Transfer Qty | Recommended units to move, sourced from what the warehouse can ship today plus purchase orders landing inside your Inbound PO Window |
| Transfer By | The latest date you can ship the transfer to avoid a stockout, working backward by transfer lead time |
| Urgency | Same five levels as supplier orders |
What the Transfer Qty cell shows
Transfer Qty counts stock that has not arrived yet, as long as it is heading for the warehouse and lands inside your Inbound PO Window. A purchase order going straight to FBA is not counted here, because a transfer moves stock out of a warehouse and that order never reaches one.
The cell splits the recommendation so you can see how much of it you are waiting on:
| Line | What it means |
|---|---|
| Now | How much of the recommendation comes from stock the warehouse can ship today. |
| An arrival date, or In window · 3 when several shipments are involved | How much of it you are waiting on, from purchase orders landing inside the window. Hover the dotted label to list the shipments behind it, each with its arrival date, quantity, and PO number where it has one. |
| Total | The recommended quantity, and the number the column sorts on. |
Both lines are parts of the recommendation, not a stock count, so they always add up to Total. A warehouse holding 500 units against a recommendation of 100 shows Now 100, not 500.
Stock on hand is used first, so the in-window number is only ever the part you genuinely have to wait for. Shippable-today stock means on hand, less anything reserved, less what your open transfer orders have already committed, so units already promised elsewhere are not offered twice.
Whether a purchase order counts is decided on calendar days, so a window closing on 10 September includes an order arriving on the 10th. When a shipment brings more than this transfer needs, the popover says so, telling you how many of the arriving units are actually being used.
The point of the split is that it lets you decide whether to wait. Seeing "move 200 units today" alongside "another 480 land on 3 September, and those will need transferring too" is what makes the choice between one transfer now and two transfers later an informed one.
A few variations you will see:
- Supply lands after the window. The line is greyed out and left out of the total, and its tooltip says when the stock actually arrives. This is what makes a small or zero recommendation explain itself rather than just looking wrong.
- Nothing on hand today. The Now value is greyed out, and the whole transfer is sourced from inbound stock.
- No transfer needed. A dash, as before. A product whose FBA stock is already at target shows a dash even if a warehouse has a late purchase order, because that shipment is not the reason nothing is recommended.
If a recommendation looks smaller than you expect, check the greyed-out line. It usually means the stock exists but arrives after your window closes, which is a signal either to widen the Inbound PO Window or to accept that this transfer has to go without those units.
Only Active purchase orders count toward the window. Drafts do not.
Seeing what is already on order
Two columns in the Inventory Overview show what you already have coming, so a recommendation never asks you to reorder units that are already on the way:
- Open POs -- units on open supplier purchase orders for the product
- Open TOs -- units on open transfer orders into FBA
Each cell splits the total into an Active line (orders you have placed) and a Draft line (orders you have started but not placed yet), so committed stock and planned stock are easy to tell apart.
Hover the Open POs or Open TOs value, or the Order Qty, to see the orders behind the number. The breakdown groups orders by status, lists each one with its date and quantity, and totals the Active group. Click any order to open its plan in a new tab.
When an active order has already shipped some units into Amazon's network, the breakdown reconciles the numbers for you. It shows the planned Total, the amount Already Shipped, and the Net Pending still on the way, and Profit Hawk subtracts those in-transit units from the open order total. That way a unit in transit counts once, instead of once as an open order and again as inbound inventory.
Draft orders appear in the breakdown for visibility, but they are not subtracted from the reorder recommendation, so a draft you are still planning never hides a reorder you actually need.
How to use them
The fastest workflow is the saved view tabs:
- Restock tab -- only products with Order Qty > 0
- Transfer tab -- only products with Transfer Qty > 0
Each tab focuses the columns on what you need to see. From there, sort by Order By or Transfer By to triage by deadline, or by Urgency to triage by severity.
To turn a list into an actual plan, use the bulk actions:
- Select rows with the checkboxes
- Click Create Order in the bulk action toolbar
- Pick Reorder (purchase from supplier) or Transfer (move from warehouse)
- Choose the supplier or source warehouse and the destination
See the full walkthroughs:
Adjusting the recommendation
Recommendations are starting points, not commands. In the order document after you create an order, every quantity is editable. Common reasons to adjust:
- Round up to a full pallet -- pallet quantity is suggested when applicable, but you can scale further
- Combine with another product on the same PO -- bump the smaller item up to share freight efficiency
- Order extra for a known event -- a Prime Day promo, a wholesale deal, a new bundle launch
The replenishment math will keep showing the gap on future runs based on actual inventory, so over-ordering today simply means smaller or no recommendations next time.
When recommendations look off
The most common causes of unexpected recommendations are:
- Lead time set too high or too low. Lead time pulls the Order By date. If lead time is wrong, the date and urgency are wrong.
- Velocity skewed by a stockout or promo. Recent stockouts pull velocity down and recent promos pull it up. Switch the velocity profile or wait a cycle for the data to normalize.
- Min/max days of stock not matching your business. Defaults are 30 and 90 days. If you run leaner or fatter, set custom values.
- Missing manufacturing cost. If a product has no cost on file, Est. Cost shows zero. The order quantity is still correct, but the cost column will not be useful.
For a structured way to diagnose, see Forecast Looks Wrong.
Refreshing recommendations
Recommendations recompute automatically:
- Daily after data syncs
- Whenever you change a product setting that affects the math
- On demand when you click Refresh Forecasts on the Inventory Overview toolbar
A manual refresh typically completes in 10 to 15 minutes.
Related
How Forecasting Works
The math behind velocity, demand, and reorder quantities.
Safety Stock
The buffer baked into every reorder recommendation.
Identify Reorders
End-to-end walkthrough of acting on supplier reorder recommendations.
Identify Transfers Needed
End-to-end walkthrough of acting on transfer recommendations.
Forecast Settings
Set the Inbound PO Window that decides which arriving purchase orders count toward a transfer.