What if my catalogue is small?

ABC is still useful at 200 items. XYZ is most useful where you have at least 12 months of movement data — for very small catalogues, the manual override is the right tool.

Does the classification work across multiple locations or warehouses?

Yes. An item can be A at the central DC and C at a regional warehouse — they're classified independently from the demand and movement at each location. Policies follow the same logic: per item, per location, with a class default and per-SKU overrides where you need them.

How is the class visible to the rest of the team?

The class sits next to the item in every uPurchase screen — suggestion list, item detail, supplier review, KPI dashboard. A purchaser, a planner and a sales manager all read the same letter, so a conversation about a B-item doesn't end in "wait, B in whose system?"

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 then turns the whole picture into concrete, explainable 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 · Stock Classification

ABC, XYZ, and the policy that follows.

Not every item deserves the same attention. uPurchase classifies your catalogue by revenue contribution (ABC) and by demand variability (XYZ), then applies the right policy automatically — tight service levels on AX items, simpler rules on CZ items, no babysitting required.

Auto-classification, transparent thresholds

A/B/C cut-offs default to 80/15/5% of cumulative revenue; X/Y/Z to demand coefficient of variation. The thresholds are yours to set — and you see which side of every line each item sits on.

Policy by class or by SKU

Set the service level for AX at 98% and CZ at 85% — the policy applies across thousands of items at once. Need a different rule for a single critical SKU? Override it at the item level; the class default remains untouched.

Always-live reclassification

Classes update continuously as the underlying data changes — no schedule, no run-button. Items that shift from one class to another are flagged the moment it happens, so you can review the policy change before it takes effect.

What you see

The 9-box that runs the buy.

A revenue-contribution score on one axis. A demand-variability score on the other. Nine boxes. AX in the top-left runs your business — tight service level, frequent review, real attention. CZ in the bottom-right is the long tail — simple rules, low service level, no daily oversight. The matrix is the policy.

ABC: revenue, units sold, or gross margin — your choice of metric
XYZ: demand coefficient of variation over the chosen horizon
Per-class service-level target, review cycle, and safety-stock model
Items moving class flagged in a "transition" view, with the reason
Class shown on every suggestion so a purchaser knows the stakes

uPurchase predicted inventory against safety stock and reorder point

When this matters

Signals you'd reach for this.

You treat 10,000 items the same

The same reorder point logic on a top-seller and a long-tail spare is mathematically wrong both ways.

Purchasers ignore B and C items

When everything looks the same urgency, the long tail gets ignored — and then surprises you.

Service-level targets are aspirational

A blanket 95% target with no math behind it is a wish. Different classes need different targets.

New items get default treatment

NPI items have no history. They need a separate class with a manual policy until they earn one.

FAQ

The questions everyone asks first.

Still wondering? Ask us directly →

You pick an existing item as a reference and clone its classification, policy and forecast onto the new one — adjusted by a quantity factor or a percentage. The new item gets useful defaults from day one and graduates to its own classification once it has movement data of its own.

See uPurchase in a 30-minute demo.

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

The uTools suite