Stock Levels & Replenishment

Stock levels are how you tell Helm WMS when a product needs reordering, how much to order, and how much stock a picking location should hold. This article explains where those levels live, what each one does, and what to check when the reordering you expected has not happened.

The Two Kinds of Level

Helm keeps two separate sets of levels against a product, answering different questions. Confusing them is the usual reason nothing happens.

Levels that decide what to buy. These sit on the product under Purchase Order Controls and drive the quantities Helm suggests on an Inventory Demand purchase order.
Levels that decide where stock sits. These sit on the product's Stock Locations and drive replenishment movements, shifting stock out of bulk storage into the locations your pickers visit.

There is no single field called minimum level. The bottom of the range is Days of Stock Required if you think in days of cover, or Trigger Level if you think in units. The top is Maximum Level on every method. Warning Level is neither: it buys nothing and only tells someone.

Example scenario: a product sells around 20 units a day and the supplier takes a fortnight. You set Based on Consumption with Days of Stock Required of 14, so each order covers the fortnight of sales Helm expects, and a Maximum Level of 800 so a quiet month cannot leave you with a pallet you cannot sell.

Before You Start

Both need full stock control. Purchase Order Controls and Stock Locations only appear when your warehouse's Stock Control Type is Full. On Basic a product carries one stock figure and a Stock Warning Level in its Stock Control section, with no suggested ordering.
The product has to be a stock product. Service items and group products have neither section.
Every product you want ordered needs a supplier with an Order Multiple. The multiple is the unit Helm rounds orders to, so a product without one is skipped.
Order Multiple options come from the product's Dimensions section. Add a row under Container Dimensions with a Type and a Qty, then pick it on the supplier.
You need inventory permissions. If Purchase Order Controls is missing on a warehouse using Full, ask whoever administers Helm to check your permission group.

Setting a Product's Reorder Levels

Go to Inventory, open the product, then expand Purchase Order Controls. It shares a card with Suppliers for a reason: the controls set the shape of the order, the supplier row sets its units.

Add the supplier under Suppliers with its Lead Time, Min Order and Order Multiple. Where there are several, Priority decides which Helm tries first.
Set the Ordering Method first: it decides which of the remaining fields appear.
Fill in the fields for that method, using the table below.
Tick the box beside Warning Level and enter a figure to be told when the product runs low. The field stays greyed out until it is ticked.
Enter a Maximum Level if there is a ceiling on how much you will hold. It has to be higher than any supplier's Min Order, or the save is rejected.
Choose Save Changes. Helm recalculates this product straight away, so there is no wait for the overnight run.

Field	Shown for	What it does
Ordering Method	Always	Based on Consumption works quantities out from recent sales, Fixed Level from plain unit numbers, and Manual not at all.
Warning Level	Always	The physical stock figure at or below which Helm raises a low stock warning.
Maximum Level	Always	The most stock you want to hold. Caps suggestions and drives the Above Maximum Level warning.
Days of Stock Required	Based on Consumption	How many days of sales stock on hand should cover. Required.
Exclude 0 Sale Days	Based on Consumption	Whether days with no sales count towards the average. See below.
Calculation Method	Based on Consumption	Fixed to Basic. Predictive (COMING SOON) cannot be selected.
Calculation Timeframe	Based on Consumption	How far back Helm looks for sales: 1 day, 7 Days, 14 Days or 30 Days. Defaults to 7 Days.
Trigger Level	Fixed Level	The level that starts an order. Required.
Target Level	Fixed Level	The level Helm orders back up to once the trigger is passed. Required.

Clearing Ordering Method back to nothing deletes this product's Purchase Order Controls, taking its Warning Level and Maximum Level with them. To stop a product being reordered but keep its levels, set Ordering Method to Manual.

How the Suggested Quantity Is Worked Out

Every calculation starts from the same figure, and it is not the one on the shelf. Helm takes Available stock, meaning physical stock less whatever is allocated to open orders, and adds any quantity still expected on a purchase order marked as Sent. A draft counts for nothing.

On Based on Consumption it then works through these steps.

Add up sales across the Calculation Timeframe and divide to get sales per day. Draft and cancelled orders are ignored, and so is an unpaid new order until it is paid.
Take off the sales expected during the supplier's Lead Time, since that stock will have gone before a delivery lands.
Multiply sales per day by Days of Stock Required to get the level to aim for, and subtract the projected level to get the shortfall.
Round the shortfall up to the next whole Order Multiple, and lift it to the supplier's Min Order if it falls short.
Take whole multiples back off until the order no longer pushes holding past Maximum Level. Helm suggests nothing rather than breach it, unless the product is at or below zero, which is always offered its Min Order.

Fixed Level is shorter. Nothing is suggested while stock sits at or above Trigger Level; below it, Helm works out what it would take to reach Target Level and applies the same rounding, Min Order and Maximum Level rules.

Exclude 0 Sale Days matters more than it looks. On Yes, only days that had sales count, so a product selling in bursts averages high and orders generously. On No, every day counts and the average falls. Use Yes for slow-moving lines, No for steady sellers.

To see the sum behind a line on a demand-generated purchase order, use View Calculation Logs on that line. It lists sales per day, days of cover, current and expected stock, the shortfall and the rounded figure Helm settled on. The logs disappear once someone edits the quantity by hand, and never appear on a manually created purchase order.

Warning Levels & Who Gets Told

A warning fires when a product's physical stock reaches or falls below its Warning Level, or its Stock Warning Level on Basic stock control. Two things then happen, both controlled under Settings > System Settings > System Notification Settings against the Stock level warning activity.

An in-app notification, as it happens. Controlled by the Push column.
A summary email once a day. It goes to the company owner only, in the morning in your time zone, listing every product under its warning level. Controlled by the Email column.

The warning and the reordering read different figures. The warning looks at Physical stock; the suggested quantity works from Available plus stock on a Sent purchase order. A product can warn you while Helm correctly suggests nothing, because the replacement is already on its way.

Time to Out of Stock

Helm also works out overnight how long each product will last. It divides that same effective figure, Available plus stock on order, by average daily sales across the product's Calculation Timeframe, falling back to 30 days where a product has no Purchase Order Controls.

On the Inventory list. Switch on the Days Stock Remaining and Average Daily Sales columns, and filter on either, to find the products worth attention. The Reorder column ticks where an order is waiting.
On the Inventory Dashboard. Under Dashboard > Inventory, the Products To Reorder card lists the products with least time left, with their Main Supplier, Projected 30D Sales and Current Stock Holding.
On the product itself. Product Reporting offers a Days of Stock Remaining report, which also predicts the date you run out. It is a separate sum, always over 30 days and against Physical stock, so it will not always match the column.

Replenishing Picking Locations

Buying more stock is only half the job. If the pallet sits in bulk storage and the pick face is empty, your pickers still cannot pick. Replenishment moves stock between the two, set per location under Stock Locations.

Replenishment type	What it means
Source	The location gives stock away. Set automatically on any Non-Pickable location, which cannot be anything else.
Replenish	The location gets topped up, whenever unallocated stock here falls below its Replenishment Level.
Ignore	Leave the location out in both directions. The default on batch-tracked products, which cannot use replenishment.

Open the product and expand Stock Locations.
Click the Replenishment cell on the location, which opens Edit Replenish Level.
Set the Type. Choosing Replenish reveals two more fields.
Enter the Replenishment Level, the point at which the location counts as low, and a Replenish Multiple, the container stock moves in.
Choose Save Changes.
Enter a figure in the Max Level column, then choose Save Changes at the foot of the section. This one saves with the section, not the dialog.

Max Level is what tells a replenishment how much to bring. Without it Helm has no target and moves exactly one Replenish Multiple, however empty the location is. If your replenishments keep arriving one carton at a time, this is why. It also caps movements you build by hand.

To generate the work, go to Warehousing > Movements, choose Create New then Replenish Movement. The dialog asks you to Choose a Replenish Type: Fully Replenish for every product and location, or Filter Location And Inventory to narrow it down. Helm draws from Non-Pickable sources before pickable ones, so bulk stock is used first.

When Each Figure Refreshes

What	When it updates
Suggested quantities, the Reorder column, Days Stock Remaining and Average Daily Sales	Overnight for every product, and immediately when you save that product's Purchase Order Controls. Suggestions refresh again when you start an Inventory Demand purchase order.
Inventory Value on the Inventory Dashboard and its chart	Overnight, as a snapshot of stock at cost. Today's deliveries and despatches appear tomorrow, and the chart plots the last snapshot of each month.
Replenishment need	At the moment you create the movement, from stock as it stands.

Nothing Happened: What to Check

Reordering that quietly does nothing is the commonest reason people land here. Work down this list first.

What you are seeing	What to check
No suggested quantity for a product, ever	It needs a supplier row with an Order Multiple, and an Ordering Method other than Manual.
Nothing suggested on Based on Consumption	There have to be sales inside the Calculation Timeframe; with none there is no rate of sale to work from. Widen the timeframe or use Fixed Level.
The Reorder column says no while stock looks low	The calculation counts stock already on a Sent purchase order. If that covers the gap, Helm is right to suggest nothing.
A suggestion smaller than expected, or nothing at all	Maximum Level is doing its job: Helm removes whole multiples until the order fits under the ceiling.
Days Stock Remaining reads zero on a well-stocked product	Zero means Helm has no rate of sale to divide by, not that you are out of stock.
Replenish Movement reports that no records were found	No location is set to Replenish and below its Replenishment Level, or no Source location holds stock. Sources must be of Location Type Storage.
The Replenishment cell will not open	The location's Storage Type is Non-Pickable, so it can only be Source. On a batch product the section is Batch Stock Locations, with no Replenishment column.

Best Practices & Notes

Set Maximum Level Even on Manual Products

Maximum Level still works when Ordering Method is Manual. It orders nothing, but it warns your buyer with Above Maximum Level when the quantity typed on a purchase order line is more than you want to hold. With Below Minimum Order Qty and Order Multiple Warning it catches most costly typing mistakes, though all three warn rather than block.

Change Levels in Bulk

Several hundred products by hand is not the intent. Under Settings > Company Settings > Import choose Inventory Purchase Order Control and upload one file carrying the supplier details and the controls together.

Review the Timeframe After a Peak

A short Calculation Timeframe makes Helm react quickly, which you want during a peak and not the week after one. If a January order looks like December sales, lengthen the timeframe or switch Exclude 0 Sale Days to No.

FAQ

Where is the minimum level field?

There is not one. Use Days of Stock Required or Trigger Level, depending on whether you think in days of cover or in units. Warning Level is the field for being told about a low product without ordering anything.

Why can't I choose Predictive?

Predictive (COMING SOON) is listed so you can see it is on the way, but it cannot be selected yet. Calculation Method stays on Basic.

Do Maximum Level and Max Level do the same job?

No, and the similar names are worth watching. Maximum Level in Purchase Order Controls caps total holding, so it caps buying. Max Level in Stock Locations caps one location, so it caps what is moved in.

If a product is still not being reordered after these checks, contact support with its item code and its Ordering Method. Between them they point straight at the settings behind the calculation.

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