The plain-language guide
How to calculate your reorder point.
Reorder point is the stock level where you place the next order, not the level where you run out. Get it wrong by a day and you're either short at the counter or sitting on stock you didn't need yet.
The short answer
Reorder point is average daily sales times lead time, plus safety stock. It's the count of units on hand where "order it soon" turns into "order it today." Below that number, the new delivery might not land before you sell out. At or above it, you still have room.
It's a trigger, not a target
A lot of owners track "how much stock do I have" and stop there. Reorder point answers a different question: at what count do I place the order. Those aren't the same thing. You can have plenty of siomai sticks on hand and still be past your reorder point, if your supplier is slow and you're selling through them fast. The number tells you when to act, not how much stock feels like enough. It's also built from a past average, which is a different thing from a forecast: see reorder point or forecast for how the two differ.
The three pieces
Take a stall selling iced tea by the cup. Average daily sales come from the forecasting guide: say 120 cups a day, counting weekday and weekend pace together. Lead time is how long the cup supplier takes from order to delivery: 3 days. Safety stock is the cushion from the safety-stock guide, sized for a supplier that mostly shows up on time: 1 day's worth, or 120 cups.
Multiply average daily sales by lead time: 120 times 3 is 360 cups, the amount you'll sell while waiting for the next delivery. Add the safety stock: 360 plus 120 is 480 cups. That's the reorder point. The moment cup stock drops to 480, counting what's on the shelf and whatever's already on the way, it's time to order, not next week.
Try it with your numbers
480
units — reorder at or below this count
Why lead time matters more than owners think
Two stalls can sell the exact same volume and need different reorder points, because one supplier delivers next-day and the other takes a week. The longer the wait, the more units you burn through before the new stock arrives, so the reorder point climbs even though nothing about your sales changed. This is also why "reorder when it looks low" doesn't work across different items: a patty supplier two blocks away and a specialty sauce shipped from another city need completely different trigger points, even if you sell the same number of units of each.
Before you can trust any of this, you need an honest count of what's actually on hand and what's already on the truck. That's the whole subject of the stock-in-transit guide: stock you've ordered but haven't received yet still counts toward your reorder point, and skipping it makes you order too early.
Most software gets the math right and stops there
A lot of inventory apps will compute a reorder point for you and call it "smart reordering." The math isn't the hard part. Knowing your real average daily sales, your real lead time, and picking the right safety stock for each supplier, that's the part that takes judgment. A formula with the wrong inputs still gives you the wrong number, just with more confidence.
Where ForeFlux picks up
ForeFlux calculates a reorder point for every item automatically, using its own forecast for average daily sales, the lead time you've set per supplier, and your safety-stock number. When an item crosses its reorder point, it's flagged on the order sheet before you'd notice on your own. You can see every number that went into it and change any of them, per item, in Profile. Nothing here is a black box.
Questions owners ask
Past the basics.
What's the difference between reorder point and safety stock?
Safety stock is one ingredient in the reorder point, not the whole thing. Reorder point is average daily sales times lead time, plus safety stock. Safety stock alone doesn't tell you when to order. It only tells you how much cushion to build in once you already know your lead time and your sales pace.
Does reorder point change if my sales change?
Yes, and that's the point of calculating it instead of picking a number once and forgetting it. If average daily sales go up, the reorder point goes up too, even if the supplier and the lead time haven't changed. A number that made sense in a slow month can be too low the moment a slow month ends.
What if I don't know my exact lead time?
Use the longest lead time you've actually seen from that supplier recently, not the one they quote you. A supplier that says two days but has shown up on day three twice this month has a two-day lead time on paper and a three-day lead time in practice. Plan around the one that's happened.
Get the buffer right, per item
Know what you need, before you need it.
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