Frequently Asked Question
FlightDeck Inventory: Release Notes
Your whole stock and purchasing picture on one page
The FlightDeck Inventory page now answers the questions buyers and managers ask every day: is our stock the right stock, what is on the way, are suppliers delivering, and what will run out before the next delivery. Ten new panels sit at the top of the page, above the charts you already use. Each one opens with a sentence or two explaining what its numbers mean.
Everything is worked out from the data CP2 already imports from Counterpoint each night. There is nothing new to set up, and every panel follows the branches chosen on the page.
Why it matters
For | What they get |
|---|---|
Owners and managers | How much cash is tied up in stock you don't need, and why stock value went up or down this year |
Buyers | What will run short before the next delivery, what is still on order, and which POs are overdue |
Purchasing managers | A scorecard of how each supplier really delivers, against the lead times set in Counterpoint |
Branch managers | Stock another branch can send you instead of buying it, and what customers are waiting for |
Know the state of your stock
A new Stock and Purchasing at a Glance strip at the top shows four numbers: the share of your regular sellers in stock, stock beyond need, what is on order, and how much of that is overdue.
Stock Health
Your stock on hand at average cost, split four ways:
- Healthy: selling at a pace that justifies holding it.
- Excess: more than six months of demand, or more than the Counterpoint maximum if that is higher.
- Slow: no sale or receipt in six months.
- Dead: no sale or receipt in a year.
The panel shows each part in dollars on one bar, and the categories holding the most stock beyond need. For example: "$412,000 of your $2.1 million in stock is beyond what you need, most of it in Batteries and Filters."
Why Stock Value Changed
A waterfall that explains the change in stock value over the last 12 months. It starts from stock at the beginning of the period, adds purchases received, takes away the cost of what was sold, adds or takes away adjustments, and ends at stock today. You can see at a glance whether you are building stock up or running it down. Anything the four don't explain, such as cost changes and transfers between branches, is shown separately as Other.
Return on Stock by Category
For each category, the gross margin earned over the last 12 months for every dollar of average stock, known as GMROI. Next to it, each category's share of your stock against its share of your sales. A category that holds a quarter of your stock but brings in a tenth of your sales stands out straight away.
Will Run Short Before the Next Delivery
The regular sellers whose stock and orders won't last until the next delivery could arrive. CP2 takes what is on hand and on order, takes off what is committed and back-ordered, and compares it with demand over the item's lead time. The list shows the soonest to run out first, with the days of stock left and how many you are short, and links straight to Smart Replenishment. Lead times come from the same place Smart Replenishment uses: the item, then the supplier, then the average of recent deliveries.
Purchasing, in one place
Purchasing used to live only in reports. It now has its own panels on the Inventory page.
Open Purchase Orders
What is still to arrive on open purchase orders, at cost, by supplier. A PO is overdue when its required date has passed and it hasn't been fully received. Suppliers with overdue orders are listed first, with how late the oldest one is.
Supplier Scorecard
How your largest suppliers have actually delivered over the last 12 months:
Measure | What it tells you |
|---|---|
Received | Purchases received from the supplier, at cost |
Lead time | The days from order to delivery, next to the lead time set in Counterpoint |
On time | The share of PO lines received by the PO's required date, or by the order date plus the supplier's lead time when there is no required date |
Received of ordered | How much of what you ordered actually arrived |
When a supplier takes much longer than the lead time set in Counterpoint, the panel says so. Smart Replenishment already uses the actual lead time once there are enough deliveries to go on.
What Customers Are Waiting For
The orders customers are waiting on:
- special orders not on a purchase order yet, with how long the oldest has waited;
- special orders that are on order;
- customer back orders on stocked items.
An order a customer is waiting on shouldn't go unnoticed.
Stock Adjustments
Stock adjustments over the last 12 months in dollars, net and by reason, so write-offs for damage, counts and other reasons are easy to see.
Transfer before you buy
When one branch is about to run short of an item, another branch often has it sitting on the shelf. Transfer Before You Buy finds those cases and tells you what to move and where, before anyone places a purchase order.
For example: "$38,000 of stock could move between branches instead of being bought." Each suggestion shows the part, the branch it comes from, the branch it goes to, the quantity and its value at cost.
CP2 only suggests stock a branch can genuinely spare:
- Excess beyond six months of that branch's own demand;
- Slow or dead stock that hasn't sold in six months or more.
What is already committed to customers stays where it is. Each unit is suggested once, taken from the branch with the most to spare, so the suggestions never double count. Every dollar moved is a dollar you don't spend on the next purchase order, and stock that wasn't selling gets a second chance.
The weekly brief now covers stock and purchasing
The optional Monday brief for managers, introduced with FlightDeck Insights, now covers stock and purchasing as well as sales. For example: "Two suppliers have $18,400 of overdue orders, and $38,000 of stock could move between branches instead of being bought."
The panels themselves are plain arithmetic and don't use AI. The brief works as before: CP2 calculates every figure first, the AI only chooses what matters and puts it into words, and any point with a number CP2 didn't supply is removed before the brief is shown.
Sent to the AI service | Never sent |
|---|---|
Company-wide stock, purchasing and sales figures | Customer names, addresses, phone numbers or emails |
Branch, category and supplier names | Clerk and rep names |
Overdue orders by supplier, and the value of possible transfers | Notes, contacts or anything from CounterCRM conversations |
It is still one request a week for your whole company, it stays off until your company opts in, and only managers see it.
Other changes
- Open purchase orders are now always current. Each night, CP2 replaces its list of open POs with the one from Counterpoint. Previously, a PO closed in Counterpoint could stay in CP2 and keep showing as on order. The first night after the update clears those out, so your on-order totals, including in the existing on-order report, may drop noticeably that once. If the nightly file ever fails to load, the previous day's list stays in place.
- The Inventory Status tiles are now labelled Current Year, which is the period they actually cover. The figures themselves haven't changed.
- Everything else on the page is unchanged. The existing tiles, charts, Low Stock and Old Stock lists all sit below the new panels.
Getting started
The new Inventory panels are part of CP2 1.4.6 and work for anyone with access to the Inventory page. There is nothing to set up:
- Open the Inventory page. The new panels sit at the top, and follow the branches you choose.
- Give it one night. Stock Health, Transfer Before You Buy and Will Run Short use the nightly Smart Replenishment snapshot. Until the first one has run, those panels say so.
- Check your lead times and required dates. The Supplier Scorecard and overdue orders are only as good as the lead times in Counterpoint and the required dates on your POs.
- Turn on the weekly brief, if you want it. It's off until your company opts in through CP2's settings, with both the AI data sharing and FlightDeck brief settings on. The settings explain exactly what is and isn't sent.
Hover the ? on any panel for a short explanation of how its numbers are worked out.