Can I lock the safety stock manually?

Yes. Lock at the item level with a reason. Locked items show a small padlock in suggestions so a purchaser knows someone set the number on purpose.

How fast does it react to lead-time slips?

Lead-time variance updates as receipts post. A persistent slip from a supplier raises the calculated safety stock at the very next reorder review.

What about seasonality?

Safety stock is recalculated every day. It scales continuously with the current forecast, rising heading into peak and falling coming out of it, so you carry the buffer that matches today's demand profile.

Inventory & Purchasing

uPurchase

Demand forecasting and purchasing, in one screen.

uPurchase is the demand-forecasting and inventory-intelligence layer Business Central never had. It classifies every SKU, forecasts demand by location, sizes safety stock against a chosen service level, applies supplier calendars and lead times, weighs carrying cost against stockout risk, and turns it all into purchase suggestions. Every recommendation answers the question “why” before you have to ask it: the forecast, the safety stock, the lead time and the current position all live on the same row as the quantity. Edit any number and the projected stock curve updates before anything is committed to Business Central. Purchasers get to challenge the numbers instead of trusting them blind, and controllers see service level, stockouts and excess as daily KPIs rather than monthly autopsies.

uPurchase demand chart with historical, future and forecast curves

Functionalities · 10

Advanced tier

uPurchase · Safety Stock & Service Level

Safety stock calculated from first principles.

Set a service-level target. Let the system compute the safety stock that achieves it given your demand variability and your supplier's lead-time variability. The carrying cost sits on the same screen, so you can see the tradeoff while you set the target.

Statistical safety stock

Calculated from the variation in demand and lead time, instead of a fixed number of days. Items with steady demand carry less and items with unreliable suppliers carry more, and you can see the calculation.

Service-level dial, visible cost

Move a target from 95% to 98% and see the inventory cost increase before you commit. Move it back if the cost isn't worth the avoided stockouts.

Lead-time variability feeds in

A supplier who is late two times out of three needs more safety stock than one who always delivers on time. The system uses your actual delivery history, not the agreed lead time.

What you see

The dial that costs money.

A service-level target is a money decision. Going from 95% to 99% can double the safety stock on a high-variability item. uPurchase shows the cost next to the dial as the carrying cost in EUR per year, so the choice is made by people who can see the price tag, not by a default set in 2019.

Per-class and per-item service-level targets
Carrying cost shown in EUR per year, recalculated on every change
Stockout history fed back: did we achieve the target we set?
Override per item with a recorded reason (e.g. customer commitment)
Locked items: safety stock you set manually that the system will not overwrite

graph calculating inventory, predicted inventory, safety stock and re-orderpoint

When this matters

Signals you'd reach for this.

Days-of-supply is your only lever

“Hold ten days of safety stock” treats all items the same. Items with low variability are over-stocked; items with high variability are under-stocked. Both cost money.

Service level is only a hope

If nobody can tell you what service level you achieved last quarter, you’re not managing it.

Supplier slip isn’t in the math

When a supplier slips, lead time grows and safety stock should grow with it. Static reorder points don’t.

Carrying cost is invisible

Inventory ties up cash and warehouse space. If nobody sees the cost when they tune a parameter, the parameter gets cranked up.

FAQ

The questions everyone asks first.

Still wondering? Ask us directly →

Because a flat "two weeks of cover" gives you too much on stable items and not enough on erratic ones. The right safety stock depends on demand variability, lead-time variability and the service-level target, and all three differ per item. Holding the same buffer everywhere quietly wastes capital on the calm SKUs and stocks out on the volatile ones.

See uPurchase in a 30-minute demo.

A real screen-share with someone who built it. No slides.

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