The plain-language guide
How to count stock that is still on the truck.
The easiest stock to buy twice is stock that is already on its way. One extra column on your order sheet stops it.
The short answer
Stock you have ordered but not yet received is still stock. Keep it in an on-the-way column next to on-hand, and when you plan an order, subtract everything that lands on or before the day that order arrives. Match arrivals by day, not by hour: a truck that comes Tuesday counts for Tuesday, whether it shows up at 9am or 5pm.
The second truck problem
Take the burger stall from our forecasting guide. On Monday it orders 1,200 patties for the weekend rush, due Thursday. On Tuesday the owner checks the freezer: 150 patties left, a big weekend coming. That number looks like an emergency, so a second order goes in. Thursday, two trucks arrive. The stall now owns more patties than freezer, and the extra ones come out of the week's profit as spoilage.
The freezer count was accurate. What the owner could not see was the 1,200 patties already paid for and already on the road, because no column on the sheet holds them.
On-hand is not what you have
What you actually have is what is on the shelf plus what is on the way. A shelf count is a photo: anything you ordered after it was taken is missing from it, even though the money is spent and the goods are moving. Decide the next order from the shelf alone, and sooner or later you buy goods you already own.
Big warehouses call this pipeline stock and track it in software. A kiosk can track it with one extra column. The arithmetic is the same either way, and it is the day rule below.
The day rule
- Keep an on-the-way column. When you place an order, write three things next to on-hand: the item, the quantity, and the day it lands. Write the landing day rather than the order date, because the landing day decides which plan the goods belong to.
- Plan around delivery days, not clock times. You will rarely know whether the truck comes at 9am or 5pm, and it does not matter. A delivery is a day. Anything arriving that day is available to that day's plan.
- Split the road into "before" and "on". Say your next delivery can land Thursday. Anything on the way that arrives before Thursday feeds the run-up — it keeps you alive until the truck comes. Anything arriving on Thursday serves the same days your new order serves, so it comes straight off what you are about to buy. Every line in the column gets one of the two jobs, never both.
- Cross it off when it lands. The moment goods hit the shelf, they leave the on-the-way column and join on-hand. One line moves; nothing is counted twice.
Try it with your numbers
1,200
units in this shipment
Comes off the new order
The millisecond that almost bought a second truck
We got the day rule wrong ourselves, in this exact spot. Our engine sorted arrivals into "lands before the delivery day" and "lands on it" — but "on it" was written as the very first instant of that day, midnight to the millisecond. An order due at 9am on the delivery day matched neither bucket. The plan showed "1,232 in transit" and "order 850 more" on the same row, and both numbers came from the same purchase order. It hid for a while because orders made from a date picker carry midnight exactly; only one with a real clock time fell through the crack. Our own checks caught it the first morning the calendar lined up, and a test now builds that collision on purpose so it cannot come back quietly. The day rule sounds obvious and is still easy to get wrong. If software with a test suite can nearly buy a second truck, a tired owner on a Sunday night can too.
Where ForeFlux picks up
ForeFlux keeps the on-the-way column for you. Record a purchase order once, and every plan after that counts it: stock landing before a delivery feeds the run-up, stock landing on the delivery day comes straight off the suggestion, and nothing is counted twice or dropped between the two. The row shows what is in transit and what is still left to buy, and they are never the same goods. The rule stays the same as everywhere else in the product: we suggest, you decide. Every number stays overridable, and your call wins.
Questions owners ask
Past the basics.
My supplier is running late. Is that stock still in transit?
Yes — move it to the day you now believe it lands, don't delete it. Delayed stock still arrives and still comes off your next order. Only when you genuinely doubt it will arrive at all should you order as if it isn't coming, and then cancel one of the two the moment you know.
What about a partial delivery?
Split it. What actually landed is on-hand now. The rest stays in your on-the-way column under the new day the supplier gives you. One line becomes two, and both keep counting.
Can I just wait for the truck to arrive before ordering again?
That costs you the lead time. If your supplier takes three days, waiting for Tuesday's truck before placing Wednesday's order means nothing new can land before Friday. Counting stock in transit exists precisely so you can order before the truck arrives without buying the same goods twice.
Count the truck before it arrives
Know what you need, before you need it.
The demo needs no signup and no card. It is the real product running on demo data.
Open the order sheet