Purchase-planning pilot · Fictional sample data
What should you buy when the budget cannot cover everything?
Planning purchases in Excel? Try a small BuyPlan example and see how budget, lead times, minimum orders and case packs affect the purchase suggestion. The browser demo is free. Help is available by email, with no sales call or credit card required.
A short trial, one purchasing decision
- Download the Excel file and open the demo. Choose the file-upload action and select it. The file contains eight fictional SKUs; headers and product names stay in English for import.
- Select USD, a budget of 1000 and 10 safety days. Recalculate. Currency labels the data; it does not convert exchange rates.
- Compare the result with the table below before changing quantities manually. Check which SKUs were selected and which did not fit the budget.
- Change the budget to 2000 and recalculate. What was added? Which item is still only partially ordered?
- If useful, try an authorized sample of 10–30 SKUs on your own device. Email answers to the feedback questions, not your company's inventory file.
Expected results for this example
Cost of all recommended quantities before the budget limit: $2,433.
| Measure | $1,000 | $2,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Suggested purchase cost | $975 | $1,953 |
| Unspent budget | $25 | $47 |
| Selected SKUs | 3 | 5 |
| SKU | $1,000 | $2,000 |
|---|---|---|
| DEMO-01 | 90 | 90 |
| DEMO-02 | 0 | 15 |
| DEMO-03 | 30 | 30 |
| DEMO-04 | 0 | 36 |
| DEMO-05 | 0 | 0 |
| DEMO-06 | 0 | 0 |
| DEMO-07 | 25 | 35 |
| DEMO-08 | 0 | 0 |
Three things to inspect
- DEMO-02: the charger is excluded at 1000 and partially ordered at 2000. Compare the model's suggestion with your own priorities.
- DEMO-05 and DEMO-06: no extra purchase is suggested because of on-hand or incoming stock. The model counts incoming stock as available; check arrival timing separately.
- DEMO-08: no sales in 90 days. Expect a data-quality warning and no order suggestion. A genuine zero is not a missing value.
Before using your own file
Keep the column headers unchanged. Stock and sales are unit quantities. sales_30, sales_60 and sales_90 are cumulative totals over the last 30, 60 and 90 days. Cost and sale price are per unit in one currency; lead time is in days; MOQ is the minimum order quantity and pack_size is units per pack. Include each SKU once. Do not replace unknown values with zero.
This is a priority-model suggestion, not a guarantee of an optimal plan, profit or savings. The example excludes tax, freight, seasonality and arrival dates. Windows is a separate product: beta 1.4.0, 14-day trial, unsigned installer and full installer-upgrade testing still incomplete.
Three feedback questions
- Which purchasing decision would you change after this trial, if any, and why?
- What data, explanation or step is missing before you could use the result?
- Would you use this again, and would you consider a monthly fee? You can suggest a price range or explain why not.