Answers to the most common questions about how Forthcast works and what each number means.
Forthcast connects to your Shopify store, reads your order history, and uses that data to estimate how much demand to expect in the future. From there it calculates:
Forecasts improve as more order history accumulates. Items with less than 6 months of history are marked with a Limited Data badge. Treat those recommendations as a starting point rather than a precise number.
Found under Inventory, Replenishment. This is where you manage day-to-day reordering decisions.
When your on-hand stock drops to this number, it is time to place an order. The reorder point is calculated from your average daily sales rate, your lead time, and a safety buffer. By the time your new stock arrives, you should not have run out. Lead time has the biggest influence on this number, so make sure it is set correctly in Settings.
A built-in buffer above your expected demand. It protects against two things: demand arriving faster than usual, and suppliers taking longer than their stated lead time. A higher service level (set in Settings) gives you a larger safety stock and a lower chance of a stockout, but it means carrying more inventory.
The suggested quantity to order to bring your stock back to a safe level. This is a recommendation. You can order more or less based on your own knowledge of minimum order quantities, promotions, or seasonality.
How many days your current stock is expected to last at your current sales rate. The coloured bar below it shows coverage relative to your lead time. If the bar is short or red, stock may run out before a new order could arrive.
The sales revenue at risk if you run out of stock during your lead time window. Use this to prioritise which reorders to act on first when you have limited cash or supplier capacity.
Units on open purchase orders that have not yet been received. These are factored into your stock position so you do not double-order. If a PO is running late or arriving with less than expected, a PO Late or PO Low warning will appear.
A quick way to see which SKUs matter most. A items are your top revenue drivers, prioritise these. B items are mid-tier. C items are slow movers or new products with limited history. Classifications are recalculated automatically as your sales patterns change.
Found under Inventory, Stock Health. A bird's-eye view of your whole catalogue.
Stock Health groups all your SKUs into categories so you can see at a glance where your inventory health is strong and where it needs attention. Items flagged as overdue or at risk of running out appear here alongside items that may be overstocked.
If a SKU was out of stock during a period when it would normally be selling, Forthcast estimates the revenue that was lost as a result. These are displayed in the banner at the top and broken down in the Stock Health report. Use this to quantify the cost of stockouts and to prioritise which items to focus on.
Items that are selling much slower than expected relative to how much stock you are holding. These tie up capital and storage. The report highlights them so you can consider markdowns, promotions, or reducing future order quantities.
Found under Settings, Bundles. Tell Forthcast which SKUs are made up of other SKUs so demand and stock add up correctly.
When you sell a bundle SKU, the units customers buy are the bundle parent — but the stock you actually consume is the components inside it. Without a bundle mapping, Forthcast would forecast the parent SKU on its own and miss the demand it places on each component. The result: overstock on the parent (you don't need to reorder a kit, you assemble it), and understock on the components.
Open Settings, Bundles. Choose the bundle parent SKU, then add each component SKU and the quantity per unit. A 6-pack of the same product is a bundle with one component at quantity 6. A gift set with three different items is a bundle with three components at quantity 1 each.
Once mapped, every sale of the parent bundle is allocated to its components in your demand history. The reorder report stops recommending purchases of the parent and instead recommends the right amount of each component.
A variety pack — for example, a sampler with one of each flavour — is mapped the same way: list each flavour SKU as a component with quantity 1. Forthcast will spread demand across all of them so each flavour is reordered in proportion to how often the variety pack actually sells.
Forthcast scans your catalogue for likely bundles and packs by looking at product titles and SKU patterns ("6-pack", "variety", "set of 3", and similar). Suggested bundles appear in Settings, Bundles with a confidence score. Review each one, edit the components or quantities if needed, and confirm — nothing is applied to your forecast until you accept the mapping.
If a bundle is something you assemble in-house from components, you don't want Forthcast asking you to reorder the assembled parent. Once a bundle has a mapping, the parent SKU is automatically excluded from reorder recommendations — the report will only show its components, since that's what you actually buy.
If you also want the parent removed from Stock Health and other reports, add it to Settings, Exclude Products. The bundle mapping itself stays active.
Bundles describe how you sell. SKU multipliers describe how you buy. If your supplier ships a SKU only in cases of 12, set the case size on that SKU's lead-time settings — Forthcast rounds order quantities up to the nearest case so what's recommended is also what's orderable.
Found under Inventory, Performance. Shows how well recent forecasts matched actual sales, and lets you apply manual adjustments to future demand.
Average units sold per month, based on months that had actual sales. This gives you a quick read on how fast a SKU moves.
Compares your 3 most recent months of sales against the 3 months before that. A rising trend means demand is growing; a falling trend means it is slowing down.
How close the forecast was to what actually sold. Higher is better. Above 70% is considered healthy. Lower accuracy on a high-velocity SKU is worth investigating; lower accuracy on a slow-moving SKU is normal and less concerning.
Shows the direction of forecast errors. A positive bias means you consistently sold more than the forecast predicted. A negative bias means the forecast is consistently over-estimating. Consistent bias in one direction is more actionable than random errors.
The most recent completed month, showing what Forthcast predicted versus what actually sold. Use this as a quick sanity check each month.
The Adjust Forecast panel at the top of the Performance tab lets you apply a percentage uplift (or downlift) to a SKU's forecast for a specific date range. For example, if you are running a promotion in April and expect a 40% increase in demand, enter +40% with start and end dates and Forthcast will factor it into the reorder calculations for that window only.
Use a negative percentage to dampen the forecast — for example, when a competitor is running a promotion you expect to take share, or when you've decided to deprioritise a SKU. Adjustments stack with the underlying model rather than replacing it, so seasonality and trend are preserved.
Active adjustments are listed below the entry form and can be removed at any time. Removing an adjustment immediately reverts the forecast for that SKU to its standard calculation. Adjustments are visible in the SKU detail panel as well, so anyone reviewing the reorder recommendation can see why the number is what it is.
Click the name of any SKU in the Replenishment table to open a detailed breakdown for that product.
The top row shows the key numbers at a glance: current stock, reorder point, safety stock, and suggested order quantity. These are the same values shown in the main table, but grouped together for easy reference.
The Inventory section of the SKU detail panel splits stock into four tiers so you can see exactly where every unit is:
Reorder calculations use all four — your effective stock position is Available + On PO − Committed − Backordered. Looking at on-hand alone is misleading once you have unfulfilled orders or POs in flight; the four-tier view is what the recommendations actually run on.
The Order Breakdown section labels each historical order as retail, bulk, or wholesale and shows you the percentage of recent demand coming from each. Bulk and wholesale orders are detected automatically from order tags, sales channel (B2B portal, Draft Orders), discount codes, and unusually large quantities — see the Order Tag Detection section for the full list of signals.
Wholesale and bulk orders are excluded from the seasonal pattern by default so a single large B2B order doesn't inflate your daily reorder point. They remain visible in the demand history so you can see the full picture, and you can override the classification on any individual order.
A chart showing how demand is expected to move over the coming months alongside your current stock trajectory. The shaded region shows the range of uncertainty. Where the stock line approaches zero, that is where you would run out if no order is placed.
A month-by-month view of historical sales for this SKU, including the number of orders and units per period. For SKUs with very few historical orders, a compact summary shows the total order count, units sold in the last 12 months, and the date of the last sale.
Shows actual sales (bars) alongside the forecast line for the same period. Use this to see how well the model has been tracking real demand, and to spot any seasonal peaks or unusual spikes that may be distorting the numbers.
Any orders that were significantly larger than typical for this SKU are flagged here. Anomalies are excluded from the seasonal pattern by default, because one unusually large B2B or bulk order should not inflate your normal reorder calculations. You can review each one and decide whether to include or exclude it.
Found under Orders. Manage incoming stock orders and track what is in transit.
Click New PO to create a purchase order. You can add SKUs and quantities manually, or use the suggested quantities from the Replenishment table as a starting point. Assign a supplier, an expected arrival date, and any reference number you use with that supplier.
PO Late appears on a SKU in the Replenishment table when an open purchase order has passed its expected arrival date and the stock has not yet been received. PO Low appears when the incoming quantity on a PO is lower than the amount originally planned for. Both are a prompt to follow up with your supplier.
Each store has a private inbound email address (shown on the Purchase Orders page). When your supplier sends a confirmation, invoice, or shipping document by email, forward it to that address — Forthcast reads the message and any PDF attachments and matches them back to the right open purchase order automatically.
We use the parsed information to update the PO with the supplier's reference number, confirmed quantities, prices, and expected ship date. If the supplier confirms a different ETA than you originally entered, the PO is updated and the In Transit numbers in your Replenishment table follow automatically.
If a forwarded email cannot be matched to an existing PO with confidence, it is held for review on the Purchase Orders page so you can attach it manually. Nothing is changed on a PO until the match is confirmed.
When a customer order can't be fulfilled because stock has run out, the unfulfilled units are tracked as backorders. Forthcast counts them per SKU and shows the total in the optional Backorders column on the Replenishment table — turn it on via the Customize button.
Backordered units stay on the SKU until either the customer order is fulfilled or it is cancelled. Reorder calculations factor backorders into priority so SKUs with customers already waiting are surfaced first. Resolved backorders disappear automatically once the order ships from your store.
If you connect Notion via the Integrations page, purchase orders can be synced to a Notion database automatically. This is useful for teams who track supplier correspondence and delivery notes in Notion alongside their Forthcast data.
Found under Inventory, Packaging. Forecast cartons, mailers, inserts, and other packaging materials from your finished-goods demand.
For each packaging material you add (a mailer, a carton, an insert, an outer box), you tell Forthcast which finished SKUs use it and how many units of that material each finished unit consumes. Forthcast then takes the demand forecast for those finished SKUs and rolls it up into a projected quantity for the packaging material itself.
On the Packaging tab, click Add Material. Give it a name, a current on-hand quantity, a supplier and lead time, and the SKUs it is used on with the units consumed per finished unit (a mailer is usually 1; an insert that is shared across products may be 1 per order; tissue paper might be a fraction).
Once linked, the packaging material gets its own row with projected demand, days of cover, and a reorder recommendation — calculated the same way as a regular SKU but driven by the rolled-up demand of the finished products it ships in.
Running out of mailers or branded boxes stops you shipping just as effectively as running out of product. Treating packaging as a forecasted item — instead of guessing from past purchase invoices — means your packaging reorders track real customer demand and you stop overbuying or running short.
The Customize button in the Replenishment table lets you control which columns are visible.
Click Customize at the top of the Replenishment table to open the column chooser. Toggle any column on or off. Your preferences are saved in your browser so the same layout appears next time you open the app.
This is useful if your team only acts on a subset of columns, or if you want a cleaner view that focuses on the most urgent information.
The search bar at the top of the report lets you filter by SKU name or product title. You can also filter by status badge (Order Now, Plan Ahead, etc.) and by supplier, so you can quickly pull up only the SKUs relevant to an upcoming order.
Found in Settings, Lead Time. The single most important input in Forthcast.
Lead time is the number of days between placing an order with your supplier and having that stock available in your warehouse or ready to ship. If it is set incorrectly, every reorder point calculated by Forthcast will be off by the same margin.
You can set a single default lead time that applies to all products. You can also set a different lead time on any individual SKU, which will override the store default for that product only. Per-SKU lead times are useful when certain suppliers are consistently faster or slower than your average.
If you use suppliers, you can set a lead time per supplier in the Suppliers section. That supplier lead time then applies automatically to all SKUs linked to them, unless a per-SKU lead time has been set that overrides it.
Found in Settings, Service Level. Controls how much safety stock to hold.
A service level of 95% means the safety stock is sized so that, across all your orders, you expect to have stock available 95% of the time. Raising it to 99% gives more protection but increases the amount of inventory you carry. Lowering it to 90% reduces safety stock and frees up cash, but increases the chance of running out.
95% is the recommended starting point for most stores. You can adjust it per SKU for products that are especially critical or especially low-priority.
Found in Settings, Buffers. Add a fixed extra quantity on top of the calculated reorder point.
A buffer adds a fixed number of units to the reorder point or safety stock for a SKU or group of SKUs. Use buffers when you have a known reason to hold extra stock that the forecast does not capture, such as a product that is hard to restock quickly, a planned promotion, or a supplier with inconsistent reliability.
Click Add Buffer, give it a name, set the extra units, and assign it to one or more SKUs. You can create multiple buffers and apply different ones to different products. Buffers can be edited or removed at any time without affecting the underlying forecast.
Found in Settings, Suppliers. Organise your products by supplier for easier reordering.
Create a supplier record with a name, lead time, and any minimum order quantity (MOQ). Once a supplier exists, you can assign SKUs to it in the per-SKU settings or via the Replenishment table.
Assigning suppliers to your SKUs lets you filter the Replenishment table by supplier and create purchase orders that group all items from the same supplier together. It also feeds the supplier lead time into reorder calculations for all linked products.
If you enter a purchase price per SKU and a minimum order quantity, Forthcast can show you the estimated cost of each reorder. This helps you plan cash flow alongside stock replenishment decisions.
Found in Settings, Exclude Products. Remove specific SKUs from your reports.
Exclude products that you never want to appear in your replenishment report. Common reasons include discontinued SKUs still in your Shopify catalogue, samples or test products, gift cards, and any item you manage stock for entirely outside Forthcast.
To bring an excluded product back into the report, go to Settings, Exclude Products, and remove it from the exclusion list. It will reappear in the Replenishment table on the next page load.
How Forthcast identifies subscription and wholesale orders — no configuration required for most stores.
Forthcast automatically excludes subscription and wholesale orders from your demand calculations using seven detection signals. These run on every order without any tag setup needed.
Forthcast connects to additional platforms beyond your main Shopify store.
Your primary connection. Order history, inventory levels, and product data all sync automatically from Shopify. No additional setup is needed.
Connect your TikTok Shop account to include TikTok sales in your demand data. Set up via the Integrations page.
Export your purchase orders to a Notion database for tracking and team visibility. Set up via the Integrations page.
This integration is currently in beta. It is available to connect on the Integrations page, but we recommend contacting us before relying on it for live inventory data.
This integration is currently in beta. It is available to connect on the Integrations page, but we recommend contacting us before relying on it for live data.
This integration is currently in beta. It is available to connect on the Integrations page, but we recommend contacting us before relying on it for live data.
If something does not look right or you have a question not covered here, we are happy to help.