A retail inventory and reorder app

Independent retailers live and die by having the right stock on the shelf. Run out of a best seller and the customer buys it somewhere else. Overorder a slow mover and your cash sits in the back room for months. Most small and mid-size stores manage this with a spreadsheet, a point of sale report nobody fully trusts, and a manager who walks the aisles with a notepad before calling vendors.

A retail inventory and reorder app gives every product a reorder point, shows what is running low, and turns that into draft purchase orders by vendor. Staff count sections on their phones, receive deliveries against what was ordered, and log damage and shrink. This guide covers what to include, how to describe it in plain words so an AI platform can build it, and how to roll it out without closing the store for a week.

What spreadsheets and walking the shelves cost you

• Stockouts on what sells. If nobody sees that a best seller is low until the shelf is empty, every day until the delivery arrives is lost sales.
• Cash tied up in slow stock. Without a clear view of what is not moving, orders repeat by habit, and the back room fills up.
• Orders that depend on one person. When the manager who knows every vendor is out, ordering stops or guesses.
• Receiving errors. If deliveries are not checked against what was ordered, short-shipments and wrong items slip through and are paid for anyway.
• Unexplained shrink. When counts are off, nobody knows whether it was theft, damage, a miscount or a vendor error, so nothing changes.
• Counts that close the store. A full annual count is disruptive and still wrong by the next month.

What the app should contain

Product record

• SKU and barcode, name, and variant such as size or color.
• Category and department.
• Vendor and vendor item number.
• Unit cost and retail price.
• Stock on hand, by location: sales floor, back room, and each store if you have several.
• Reorder point and reorder quantity, by location.
• Vendor lead time in days.
• Case pack: the number of units the vendor ships per case, so orders round correctly.
• Status: active, seasonal, discontinued.

Stock movements

Every change to stock on hand should be a movement with a reason, a quantity, who did it and when:

1. Received from a purchase order.
2. Sold, from your point of sale export or entered sales.
3. Counted, which adjusts stock to the count and records the difference.
4. Damaged or expired.
5. Theft or unexplained loss.
6. Transferred between locations.
7. Returned to vendor.

Movements are what make the numbers trustworthy. When stock on hand is wrong, the movement history shows why.

Reorder list and purchase orders

The reorder list shows every product at or below its reorder point, grouped by vendor, with a suggested quantity rounded to the case pack. The manager reviews it, adjusts quantities, and turns each vendor's list into a draft purchase order. Purchase order statuses:

• Draft.
• Approved.
• Sent to vendor.
• Partly received.
• Received.
• Closed, or canceled.

Receiving

When a delivery arrives, staff open the purchase order on a phone and scan or enter what actually came in. Differences from the order, such as short, damaged or wrong item, are recorded with a photo. Stock on hand updates when receiving is complete, and the manager sees the discrepancies before paying the invoice.

Cycle counts

Instead of one big count, the app schedules sections to count each week. Staff open the section on a phone, scan or enter quantities, and submit. Differences above a threshold need a second count before they adjust stock. High-value and fast-moving items can be counted more often.

Setting a reorder point, a worked example

Say you sell about 20 boxes of a deck screw a week, and the vendor takes 7 days to deliver. During the lead time you sell about 20 boxes, so if you order when you have 20 left, the shelf hits zero right as the truck arrives. Add a buffer for a busy week, say 10 boxes, and your reorder point is 30. If the vendor ships in cases of 12 and you want about two weeks of stock per order, a reorder quantity of 36, three cases, keeps the math simple. Revisit the numbers each season, because a deck screw sells very differently in May than in December.

Roles

Notifications

• The store manager is told each morning how many products hit their reorder point, by vendor.
• The buyer is told when a purchase order is not received within its expected lead time.
• The manager is told when receiving finds a discrepancy.
• A count difference above the threshold asks for a recount and tells the manager.
• A weekly summary goes to the owner: stockouts, shrink by reason, inventory value, and slow movers.

Reports

• Stockouts: products that hit zero, and for how many days.
• Inventory value by department and location.
• Slow movers: products with no sales in a set number of days.
• Shrink by reason and by department.
• Vendor performance: on-time deliveries and discrepancies.
• Sell-through by category, for seasonal planning.

Example request

Example request: "Build an inventory and reorder app for our two hardware stores. Each product has SKU, barcode, name, variant, category, department, vendor, vendor item number, unit cost, retail price, stock on hand by location (store 1 floor, store 1 back room, store 2 floor, store 2 back room), reorder point and reorder quantity per store, vendor lead time in days, case pack and status (active, seasonal, discontinued). Every change to stock is a movement with type (received, sold, counted, damaged, theft or loss, transfer, returned to vendor), quantity, who and when. We upload a daily sales file from our point of sale to record sales. Show a reorder list of products at or below the reorder point, grouped by vendor, with suggested quantities rounded up to the case pack. The store manager adjusts and approves it into a purchase order with statuses draft, approved, sent, partly received, received, closed and canceled. Receiving opens a purchase order on a phone, records what arrived by scanning or entering, and records short, damaged or wrong items with a photo. Schedule weekly cycle counts by section; a difference over 5 units or 100 dollars needs a recount. Tell the manager each morning how many products need reordering, and tell them about any receiving discrepancy. Send the owner a weekly summary of stockouts, shrink by reason, inventory value and slow movers with no sales in 90 days. Roles are owner, store manager, receiving lead, associate and bookkeeper. Only invited staff can sign in."

How to roll it out

1. Clean the product list first. Export products from your point of sale or spreadsheet, remove duplicates and discontinued items, and confirm vendors and case packs. This is tedious and it is the foundation.
2. Set reorder points for your top sellers. Start with the products that make most of your sales. Use sales during the vendor's lead time plus a buffer. Leave the long tail for later.
3. Do one starting count. Count every section once, so stock on hand starts accurate. Spread it over a few days by section rather than closing the store.
4. Turn on receiving. Start receiving every delivery against its purchase order in the app. This catches errors from day one.
5. Run the reorder list for two weeks with manager review. Compare its suggestions to what the manager would have ordered and adjust reorder points that feel wrong.
6. Start cycle counts. Count a few sections a week, starting with high-value and fast-moving areas.
7. Review monthly. Look at stockouts, slow movers and shrink by reason, and adjust reorder points and staffing.

Mistakes to avoid

• Setting reorder points for every product on day one. Start with your top sellers. Perfect is the enemy of started.
• Ignoring case packs. Ordering 7 when the vendor ships in cases of 12 creates confusion at receiving. Round to the case.
• Adjusting stock without a reason. Every change should be a movement with a reason, or you will never know why counts drift.
• Accepting deliveries without checking. Receiving against the purchase order is where vendor errors are caught. Skip it and you pay for them.
• Annual counts only. A count once a year is out of date by February. Cycle counts keep numbers honest.
• Approval by everyone. One person owns the purchase order budget. Others can suggest.

How to measure that it works

Record these for the month before launch, then compare monthly:

• Number of stockouts on your top sellers.
• Inventory value, and the share in slow movers.
• Shrink by reason.
• Receiving discrepancies caught before invoices were paid.
• Time the manager spends on ordering each week.

Fewer stockouts with the same or lower inventory value is the result you are after: the right stock, not just more of it.

Launch checklist

1. Product list is cleaned, with vendors, costs and case packs.
2. Reorder points and quantities are set for top sellers.
3. Starting count is complete.
4. Stock changes are recorded as movements with reasons.
5. Sales reach the app daily.
6. Receiving runs against purchase orders, with photos for discrepancies.
7. Cycle count schedule and recount threshold are set.
8. Morning reorder alert and weekly owner summary are on.

How FORGE handles it

On FORGE, your store manager or buyer describes the app in plain words, like the example above, and FORGE builds it. A panel of top AI models plans it around your products, vendors and rules, a dedicated AI crew builds it, and every piece is checked for quality and security before it is saved, with the app checked at every step. Most teams have their first real tool the same day, on phones for the floor and receiving and a computer for the office.

Your costs, vendors and sales stay inside your company. People join only by invite, and each role sees what it should, so associates count and receive without seeing costs and margins. There is a complete record of who did what, which is exactly what you want when counts do not match. Associates who only use the app are free; builders are $49 a seat a month with 3 builds included, and changes cost a small fraction of a build. We onboard every team ourselves, starting with a workflow workshop. Talk to us or see pricing.

Questions people ask