AutoSTOCK
User Guide – Automated Stock Level Optimization
🧠 What AutoSTOCK Actually Does
AutoSTOCK replaces manual stock-level guesswork with a data-driven optimization run built from real business requirements:
📄 How AutoSTOCK Works – Visual Flow
from Your ERP
per Product
(One-offs Filtered Out)
(Your Chosen Mode)
+ Report Emailed
In Demo Mode the flow is identical — except the last step only reports what would be written, without touching your ERP.
🚀 Getting Connected
- Install the BOTS4.me Connect app in your Odoo — the one-click connector bridges Odoo (13.0 → 19.0) to the whole BOTS4.me suite. It logs you in with a 2FA-gated email login and provisions a technical user so AutoSTOCK can read sales history and write reordering rules over the API. One connector, one account, all apps.
- Assign the ERP account to AutoSTOCK — in the Access Manager at BOTS4.me/bots → Settings → AutoSTOCK, assign your connected ERP account to the app. AutoSTOCK runs on Odoo (13–19), ERPNext (15–16), Zoho Inventory, Dolibarr (23 and newer), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (online), QuickBooks Online and Xero today; on Business Central, QuickBooks Online, Xero and SAP Business One, BOTS4.me keeps the reorder rules for you.
- Start in Demo Mode — Demo Mode is on by default: full analysis and report, zero changes in your ERP. Review a few reports before going live.
- Pick your optimization mode and settings — everything is configured on the dashboard at /bots; the defaults are production-proven starting values.
- Go live — switch Demo Mode off and enable Write Reorder Rules (every paid plan, including the free Discovery month). From the next run on, your ERP’s reordering rules follow your real demand.
💡 Learn more about what the technical user can and cannot do at Access Levels.
🎛️ The Five Optimization Modes
All five modes answer the same question — “how much of this product should I keep in stock?” — with different math. Switch modes anytime in the dashboard. Not sure which fits? The Monthly mode & window comparison below compares all of them on your own sales history.
Coverage
The default. The reorder point (min) is what sells during the vendor lead time plus a 50% buffer; the order-up-to level (max) adds your target cover — 2 months of average demand by default. Example: a product sells 5 pieces a day and the vendor delivers in 14 days, so the min is 105 pieces and the max is 105 + 300 = 405 pieces.
When to use: the simple, robust choice for most businesses. Easy to explain, easy to sanity-check, production-proven. Start here.
Service Level
Statistical safety stock. Computes how much stock you need to avoid a stockout during the supplier lead time with a chosen probability (95% by default, configurable 80–99%). Uses your vendor lead times from the ERP and automatically excludes products with erratic, unpredictable demand.
When to use: stable-demand catalogs where you want a precise availability target instead of a flat cover. Available at the Business tier.
Demand Percentile
Distribution-free. Instead of assuming demand follows a nice bell curve, it takes a chosen percentile of your real daily demand (90% by default, configurable 50–99%) as the safety buffer. No statistical assumptions — just your actual demand pattern.
When to use: lumpy, irregular demand where averages lie — occasional big orders mixed with quiet weeks. Available at the Business tier.
Hybrid
Per-product automatic. Classifies every product by how regularly it actually sells, then applies Service level math to the steady sellers and Demand percentile math to the erratic ones. Products too sparse for either are left alone rather than given a misleading target.
When to use: mixed catalogs where one rule does not fit everything — you would otherwise have to split the catalog by hand. Available at the Business tier.
Recent-weighted
No cut-off date. Same idea as Coverage, but recent sales count more than old ones: a sale counts half as much once one lead time has passed, a quarter after two, and so on. Nothing ever drops off a cliff at the edge of the analysis period.
When to use: catalogs that change — new projects ramping up, old lines dying off. A product that starts selling is stocked within weeks instead of being diluted across the whole period, and one that stops is run down instead of being held on stale demand. Available at the Business tier.
📅 Monthly Design Report — Let the Data Pick Your Settings
Choosing a mode and an analysis period by intuition is guesswork. Once a month AutoSTOCK can run every mode against every analysis period on your own sales history and email you the comparison — so the decision is made from your data, not a hunch.
- Two numbers per combination — Capital (what the reorder points are worth at purchase price) and Revenue at risk (a backtest: if the worst demand stretch of the past year repeated, how much revenue your stock level would put at risk). Lower capital with equal-or-lower risk is a straight win.
- Your current setting is highlighted alongside the recommended one, so you always see what you would be giving up or gaining.
- It tells you exactly what to change — the email ends with the settings to apply, named as they appear in your dashboard.
- Nothing is changed in your ERP — the report is read-only. You decide whether to act on it.
🧠 SMART Demand Shaping — Optional Intelligence Layers
Four independent switches that refine the demand figure feeding your chosen mode. Each one can be switched on or off on its own — they stack, but none of them depends on the others. Leave Trend adjustment off with Recent-weighted mode, which already follows recent demand.
- Outlier dampening — a one-time bulk order counts only partially (25% by default), so a single unusual sale cannot inflate your stock for months. If that customer comes back and keeps buying, their demand starts counting fully by itself. Recurring and seasonal demand is untouched.
- Trend adjustment — compares recent sales against the same period a year earlier and moves targets up or down within safe limits. A genuinely dying product stops being restocked, without mistaking a low season for a decline.
- Seasonal look-ahead — raises targets one full lead time before your season starts, based on last year’s pattern, so seasonal goods are ordered early enough to actually arrive on time.
- Seasonal purchase reminders — an email listing products that sold in the upcoming period last year but deliberately will not be auto-stocked. A human decides, while there is still time to order manually.
⚙️ Dashboard Settings Reference
All settings live at BOTS4.me/bots → Control → AutoSTOCK. If a setting is left out of range or is locked by your tier, AutoSTOCK safely falls back to the default.
| Setting | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Optimization mode | coverage / service level / percentile / hybrid / recent-weighted | coverage | How target stock levels are computed — see the five modes above. |
| Analysis period | 30 – 730 days | 120 days | How far back sales history is analyzed to measure demand. Longer = smoother averages; shorter = faster reaction to trend changes. |
| Target cover | 0.5 – 24 months | 2 months | How many months of average demand the order-up-to level (max) adds on top of the reorder point (min). |
| Min. unique customers | 1 – 100 | 2 | Qualification gate: a product only gets a stock target if at least this many different customers bought it in the analysis period. |
| Min. orders | 1 – 1000 | 4 | Qualification gate: a product only gets a stock target if it was ordered at least this many times in the analysis period. |
| Service level | 80 – 99% | 95% | Service level mode: target probability of not stocking out during the supplier lead time. |
| Demand percentile | 50 – 99% | 90% | Percentile mode: the daily-demand percentile used as the safety buffer. |
| Default lead time | 1 – 365 days | 30 days | Used when a product has no vendor lead time configured in your ERP. You can change it from the Family tier. |
| Write Reorder Rules | on / off | off | Writes the computed stock targets to your ERP as reordering rules (min/max). When off, AutoSTOCK is report-only. Every paid plan. |
| Take Over My Rules | on / off | off | When on, AutoSTOCK also manages the reordering rules you created yourself. When off, they stay exactly as you set them and the report lists them. |
| Never-stock list | product codes, comma-separated | empty | Products AutoSTOCK never gives a rule. |
| Email reports | after each analysis / only when rules change / weekly summary (Monday) | after each analysis | When the stock report is emailed. In Demo Mode a report is sent after every analysis. Reports that need a hand (missing rights, rules that could not be written, an ERP that could not be read) are always sent right away. |
| Run schedule | daily / weekly | daily | How often AutoSTOCK analyzes your sales history and updates the rules. |
| Monthly mode & window comparison | on / off | off | Once a month, emails the mode & analysis-period comparison with a recommendation. Read-only towards your ERP; each report uses a small part of your monthly allowance. Business tier. |
| Comparison windows | up to 4 values, in days | 120, 240, 365 | Which analysis periods the Monthly mode & window comparison compares against each other. |
| Outlier dampening | on / off | on | One-time bulk orders count only partially toward stock targets. Every paid plan. |
| Outlier weight | 0 – 100% | 25% | How much of an unusual one-time order still counts. 0% = only the normal demand level counts; 100% = outliers count fully. |
| One-time buyer limit | 1 – 10 days | 3 days | A customer buying on at most this many days counts as one-time for dampening; once they return more often, their demand counts fully. |
| Trend adjustment | on / off | off | Moves targets up or down within safe limits based on year-over-year demand. Business tier. |
| Seasonal look-ahead | on / off | off | Raises targets one lead time before your season starts, based on last year. Business tier. |
| Seasonal purchase reminders | on / off | off | Emails products that sold in the upcoming period last year but will not be auto-stocked, so you can order them manually. Business tier. |
🚪 Qualification Gates — Why One-Off Items Never Get Targets
The most expensive stock mistake is stocking products nobody will buy again. A single customer who once ordered 500 pieces of a special item would poison a naive average — so AutoSTOCK demands proof of recurring demand before it assigns any target:
- Enough different customers — at least the configured number of unique customers (default 2) must have bought the product in the analysis period. One big customer alone is not a trend.
- Enough separate orders — the product must appear on at least the configured number of orders (default 4). A single bulk purchase is not recurring demand.
- Stockable products only — services and non-storable products never get a reordering rule.
- Bought from a vendor — a product needs a vendor (or a Buy route) in your ERP; kits, archived products and products on your never-stock list get no rule.
🔍 Demo Mode
- Full analysis, zero risk — Demo Mode runs the complete analysis and sends the complete report, but writes nothing to your ERP. Perfect for validating the targets before you trust them.
- Runs at most about once per day — regardless of your scheduler cadence, a new demo analysis is billed at most roughly once every 24 hours.
- Your usage allowance is still used — the analysis itself is the billable work, so demo runs count just like live runs.
- A report after every analysis — in Demo Mode the report is always sent, whatever you chose under Email reports.
- On by default — every new AutoSTOCK setup starts in Demo Mode. Switch it off in the Control tab at BOTS4.me/bots when you are ready to go live.
📊 Reading the Report
After each analysis — or only when rules change, or weekly, as you chose under Email reports — you receive a stock report by email. Here is how to read it:
📋 Summary Block
- The settings the run used (mode, analysis period, qualification gates) and the warehouse
- How many products were analysed, how many get a rule, and why the others got none
- How many products are below their reorder point — they need to be ordered now
- How many reordering rules were written (or, in Demo Mode, would change), plus What this means and What to do next
📄 Product Table
One row per product that gets a rule:
- Reorder point (min) — when stock falls to this level, it is reordered
- Order up to (max) — the level a new order fills stock up to
- Stock + incoming — what you have plus what is already on order
- Status — new rule, updated, unchanged, would change (Demo Mode), or not written
🆓 What Each Tier Unlocks
- Free plan: report-only — the analysis and the report, no rules written.
- Personal tier and up (including the free Discovery month): unlocks Write Reorder Rules (off until you switch it on), Take Over My Rules, the Never-stock list and Outlier dampening (on by default).
- Family tier and up: your own Default lead time.
- Business tier and up: unlocks every optimization mode except Coverage — Service level, Demand percentile, Hybrid and Recent-weighted — plus the Monthly mode & window comparison and the other SMART layers (trend adjustment, seasonal look-ahead, seasonal purchase reminders).
See current plans and pricing on the AutoSTOCK product page. Downgrading is safe: rules already written to your ERP are never reversed.
🛒 How AutoSTOCK Feeds AutoPURCHASE
AutoSTOCK answers “how much should I keep in stock?” — AutoPURCHASE answers “what should I order today to get there?”. Every AutoSTOCK run persists its computed targets, and AutoPURCHASE picks them up automatically:
- Fresh targets flow through — when you own both apps and “Use AutoSTOCK Targets” is enabled in AutoPURCHASE, the freshly computed targets are used directly for ordering. While AutoPURCHASE creates the purchase orders, the rules in Odoo are set so Odoo does not order by itself as well.
- Always in sync — schedule AutoSTOCK to run before AutoPURCHASE and your purchase proposals always reflect the latest demand analysis.
- Optional, not required — AutoPURCHASE also works standalone using the reordering rules already in your ERP (including the ones AutoSTOCK wrote).
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
The report arrived, but no reordering rules were written. Why?
The report’s What to do next names the exact reason. The usual ones, in order: 1) Demo Mode is on — Demo Mode never writes to your ERP; switch it off in the Control tab at BOTS4.me/bots. 2) The Write Reorder Rules feature is off — it starts off; enable it in Control → AutoSTOCK. 3) Your plan — on the free plan AutoSTOCK is report-only; every paid plan, including the free Discovery month, can write rules. 4) Rights in your ERP — in Odoo the BOTS4.me user needs the Inventory Administrator right. 5) Nothing changed — the rules are already up to date, or no product met the qualification gates.
Why was a specific product skipped?
The report lists why products got no rule. The most common reasons: it did not pass the qualification gates (too few unique customers or too few orders in the analysis period); it is a service or non-storable product; it has no vendor or Buy route in your ERP; it is a kit, archived, or on your never-stock list; or — in Service level mode — its demand was too erratic or too thin to compute a reliable statistical safety stock (such items are deliberately excluded rather than given a misleading target; try Coverage or Percentile mode for them).
How often does AutoSTOCK run?
Daily or weekly — you choose in the Control tab at BOTS4.me/bots. A full analysis is executed (and billed) at most about once per day: stock targets change with demand, not by the minute, so more frequent analysis would only use up your allowance.
Which optimization mode should I start with?
Coverage. It is the default for a reason — simple to reason about and production-proven. Once you trust the reports, move stable-demand catalogs to Service level for precise availability targets, use Demand percentile for lumpy, irregular demand, or let Hybrid decide per product on a mixed catalog. You can switch modes anytime; the next run recomputes everything. Rather not guess? Turn on the Monthly mode & window comparison and let it compare all five on your own history.
What happens to products with no vendor lead time in my ERP?
The Default lead time setting (30 days by default, adjustable from the Family tier) is used for them. For best results, maintain real lead times on your vendor records in the ERP — the reorder point depends on the lead time in every mode.
Does Demo Mode really use my usage allowance?
Yes. The analysis is the billable work — in Demo Mode you get the full computation and the full report, only the ERP write is skipped. Demo runs are limited to about one per day, so testing stays affordable.
Will AutoSTOCK overwrite reordering rules I set manually?
No. AutoSTOCK manages only the rules it created and Odoo’s empty rules (min and max 0). A rule you set yourself — or one of ours you changed in the ERP afterwards — is left as you set it and listed in the report. Switch on Take Over My Rules if AutoSTOCK should manage those too, and put products that must stay manual on the Never-stock list. When a product AutoSTOCK manages no longer qualifies, its rule is set to 0 so nothing more is reordered.
I need help! How do I get support?
Check the processing logs at BOTS4.me/bots first — every run logs what it did and why. Still stuck? Contact us via the contact page and we will help.
🔧 Troubleshooting
⚠️ No report arrives
Check these things:
- AutoSTOCK is switched on in the Control tab at BOTS4.me/bots
- Email reports is not set to “Only when rules change” or “Weekly summary” — then no report is sent when nothing changed
- Your plan is active and its usage allowance is not used up
- An ERP account is assigned to AutoSTOCK in the Access Manager
- Check the processing logs in the dashboard for errors
⚠️ Very few products qualified
This is usually the gates doing their job — but if too strict:
- Lower Min. unique customers and/or Min. orders in the settings
- Extend the Analysis period so more history counts toward qualification
- Remember: services and non-storable products never qualify
⚠️ Targets look too high or too low
Tune the settings, then re-check in Demo Mode:
- Coverage mode: adjust Target cover (months of demand to keep)
- Service level mode: lower/raise the Service level percentage
- Percentile mode: lower/raise the Demand percentile
- Check that vendor lead times in your ERP are realistic — inflated lead times inflate safety stock
- If one unusual bulk order is driving a target far too high, check that Outlier dampening is on and lower the Outlier weight