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Replenishment planning should not live in a spreadsheet that is already out of date by the time you open it. Bold’s purchasing and manufacturing assistant synthesises everything that matters — your forecasts, current stock, open purchase orders, supplier lead times, and the rules you define — into a single prioritised action list. Every morning you open Bold, review the proposals, and confirm the ones you agree with. The days of parallel spreadsheets and gut-feel decisions are over.

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How the assistant works

The assistant runs continuously in the background. Each time it detects that a replenishment trigger has been met — a stock level falling below minimum, a coverage window about to expire, or a forecast spike coming up — it creates a proposed action. When you open the assistant view, you see a filtered list of those proposals, already ranked by urgency and sorted by your rules. For each proposal, Bold shows you:
  • The material or finished product affected
  • The recommended action: raise a purchase order to a supplier, or launch a Work Order for internal production
  • The suggested quantity, calculated from your batch-size and coverage rules
  • The target order date and expected delivery or completion date, derived from the supplier or manufacturing lead time
  • The reason for the proposal: which rule was triggered
Proposals are recalculated in real time. If a sales order is confirmed or a delivery is received while you are reviewing the list, Bold updates the affected proposals immediately — no overnight batch required.

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Configure your planning rules

Before the assistant can make accurate proposals, you need to define the rules that govern how you want to replenish each material or product. Set these in Settings → Planning Rules or directly on each product or material card.
1

Set minimum stock levels

Define the floor below which you never want a material to fall. Bold will trigger a replenishment proposal as soon as projected stock — accounting for open orders and forecasted consumption — would breach this level.
2

Define optimal batch sizes

Tell Bold the quantity increment that makes commercial or operational sense for each item: a supplier’s minimum order quantity, a full pallet, or a standard production run. Proposals will always be rounded to the nearest valid batch.
3

Set coverage days

Specify how many days of forecasted demand you want each replenishment to cover. A coverage of 30 days means Bold will order enough to last a month at the forecasted consumption rate. Combine this with minimum stock to create a buffer that suits your risk tolerance.
4

Assign supplier lead times

On each supplier’s product card, enter the lead time in working days. Bold uses this to back-calculate the order date: if you need materials on a given date, the order must be placed that many days earlier.

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Review and act on proposals each morning

The assistant is designed for a quick daily ritual — typically five to fifteen minutes.
1

Open the Purchasing Assistant

Navigate to Planning → Purchasing Assistant from the left sidebar. You will see the full list of pending proposals, sorted by urgency.
2

Review each proposal

Check the suggested quantity, target date, and triggering reason. Click any proposal to expand it and see the full breakdown: forecasted demand, current stock, open orders, and the calculation behind the recommended quantity.
3

Confirm or adjust

If you are happy with the proposal, click Confirm. Bold will create the purchase order or Work Order immediately. If you want to tweak the quantity or date, edit those fields directly before confirming.
4

Skip or dismiss

If a proposal is not relevant right now — for example, you already have an off-system arrangement with the supplier — click Skip. The proposal is removed from the list until the next trigger cycle. Use Dismiss permanently only if the rule itself needs revisiting.
Run the purchasing assistant review as a standing five-minute task at the start of each working day. The more consistently you act on proposals, the more your planning rules stay calibrated to your operation.

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Handle exceptions and override recommendations

The assistant is a recommendation engine, not a mandate. You are always in control.
Edit the Target date field in the expanded proposal view. Bold will warn you if the new date creates a lead-time conflict — for example, if the adjusted date would not leave enough time for the supplier to deliver before stock runs out.
Use Skip when you do not want to act on a proposal today but expect to address it soon. The proposal reappears at the next trigger cycle unless you dismiss it.
If you find yourself overriding the same material repeatedly, the underlying rule probably needs adjusting. Go to the material card and update the minimum stock, batch size, or coverage days. Future proposals for that material will reflect the new rule immediately.
Dismissing a proposal permanently removes it from the assistant list. Bold will not warn you again for that trigger until you re-enable it on the material card. Use this only when you are certain the rule is misconfigured — not as a way to clear the list quickly.

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From purchase order to warehouse receipt

Once you confirm a purchase order proposal, it appears in the Purchases module where your procurement team can track it. When the delivery arrives and is scanned in the WMS, stock is updated in real time and the assistant recalculates all downstream proposals immediately. The loop closes without any manual data entry.