A stock policy is the set of rules for one product on one site: how much cover to keep, when to reorder, how much to order at a time, how big a batch can be, how much shelf life to insist on. Planning reads these rules, and so do stock alerts.
Products without a policy are not forecast at all, and they get no safety stock, no reorder point and no alerts. A policy is what turns a bare requirement into a rule you can manage against.
Where to find it: Setup → Demand Planning → Stock Policies.
The list
Every policy for the current site, one row per product: Product, Safety Stock Qty, Safety Stock Days, Reorder Point Qty, Order Multiple, Max Stock Qty, Max Batch Qty, Shelf Life Days, FEFO Enforced and Active. The search box narrows on the product code.
Every filter the grid offers works, and so do the sort and the page you are on: the server is asked for the matching policies, so a match on page four is found. The numeric boxes ask for an exact value — type 30 in Shelf Life Days to see the products that keep exactly 30 days — and FEFO Enforced and Active are True/False.
Day counts read as whole numbers. Safety Stock Days, Lead Time Days, Shelf Life Days, Review Frequency Days, Forecast Horizon (weeks) and History Used (weeks) show as 7, not 7.00. They are counts of days and weeks, and two decimal places invited the question of what a hundredth of a day was for. Quantities keep their decimals, because a quantity really can be 12.25 kg.
Creating a policy
- Open Stock Policies and start a new one. The form opens with your account's defaults already filled in — the Default Forecast Method, Forecast Horizon, History Used, Safety Stock Days and Lead Time Days from Forecast Settings. Everything else starts at QTRACA's own starting values (Reorder Point Method Fixed, Service Level 95%, Seasonality Period Monthly, Review Frequency Days 30, FEFO Enforced and Active ticked).
- Pick the Product. One policy per product per site — a second policy for the same product on the same site is refused.
- Choose the Reorder Point Method first. It decides which of the fields below you fill in and which QTRACA works out for you.
- Set the cover, order and capacity figures you want. 0 or blank means "no rule" rather than a limit of zero.
- Leave Active ticked. An inactive policy is kept but ignored by forecasting, planning and alerts.
Saving recalculates the policy immediately, so you see the calculated figures (or the reason there are none) straight away rather than after the next forecast.
What each field does
In the order they appear on the form.
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Product | The product these rules govern. Cannot be shared with another policy on the same site. |
| Reorder Point Method | How the safety stock and reorder point are arrived at: Fixed (entered manually), Dynamic (days of supply) or Forecast Based (service level). See Reorder point methods. |
| Safety Stock Qty | The buffer you intend to hold on top of demand, as a quantity in the product's stock unit. Falling to or below it raises a below safety alert. Read-only on Dynamic and Forecast Based, where QTRACA calculates it. |
| Safety Stock Days | The buffer expressed as days of cover. On Dynamic this is the input that drives the calculated Safety Stock Qty. On Fixed and Forecast Based nothing reads it. |
| Forecast Method | Which algorithm forecasts this product: Moving Average, Weighted Moving Average, Exponential Smoothing or Seasonal Decomposition. |
| Seasonality Period | Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Annual. Read by Seasonal Decomposition and Exponential Smoothing; ignored by the two simpler methods. |
| Forecast Horizon (weeks) | How far ahead this product is projected. Must be greater than zero. |
| History Used (weeks) | How much past demand the projection is built from. Must be greater than zero. |
| Service Level % | 90%, 95%, 97% or 99%. How often you want to be able to meet demand out of stock. Read by Forecast Based only; a higher level buys a bigger buffer. |
| Lead Time Days | Days from raising a replenishment to having it on hand. It sets the reorder point on both calculated methods, is what a stockout risk is projected over, and is procurement's fallback when the supplier records no lead time of its own. |
| Reorder Point Qty | The level at which stock should be replenished. Falling to or below it raises a below reorder alert. Read-only on Dynamic and Forecast Based. |
| Order Multiple | "Orders are rounded up to a whole multiple of this (e.g. case size)." It is not how much to bring in — it is the step size the quantity is rounded up to. |
| Min Order Qty | "Used when the supplier sets no minimum." The supplier's own Minimum Order Qty always wins, because theirs is the figure enforced at the point of order. |
| Max Order Qty | "Never order more than this in one go." This is the one cap that will hold even below what production needs; the shortfall is noted on the procurement line. |
| Max Stock Qty | The ceiling on what you want to hold. Going above it raises an excess stock alert, and procurement will not buy past it unless production needs more. |
| Max Batch Qty | The most that can be made in a single batch — your equipment capacity. Production planning splits a larger requirement into several works orders. Blank or 0 means no limit. See Planning around equipment capacity. |
| Production line | "Works orders for this product are planned on this line." Chosen from this site's production lines; one belonging to another site is refused ("Production line is on another site"). Left blank, the product's works orders are planned with no line, and no line's capacity is checked against them. See Planning around equipment capacity. |
| Shelf Life Days | How long the product keeps. It is what decides how early an approaching expiry alert is raised — within the last 20% of it. |
| FEFO Enforced | First expired, first out — records that this product should be consumed in expiry order. |
| Waste Threshold % | The waste rate you consider acceptable, between 0 and 100. Above it raises a high waste alert, and it also colours the Waste rate figure on the Planning Cycle. |
| Review Frequency Days | How often the product should be reviewed. It is also the quiet period after an alert is acknowledged, and the review period in the Forecast Based formula. 0 or blank means no quiet period. |
| Active | Untick to retire a policy without deleting it. |
Reorder point methods
Read from the bottom up, the levels describe a band you want to stay inside. Safety Stock is the floor you do not want to break into; the Reorder Point sits above it, far enough that a replenishment arrives before the buffer is eaten; Max Stock is the ceiling that protects against tying up cash and, for short-life products, against throwing stock away.
The method decides who works the two lower levels out.
| Method | Safety Stock Qty | Reorder Point Qty |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed (entered manually) | Exactly what you type. Nothing ever changes it. | Exactly what you type. |
| Dynamic (days of supply) | Average daily demand × Safety Stock Days | (Average daily demand × Lead Time Days) + safety stock |
| Forecast Based (service level) | z(Service Level %) × the weekly forecast error × √((Lead Time Days + Review Frequency Days) ÷ 7) | (Average daily demand × Lead Time Days) + safety stock |
The pieces in those formulas mean:
- Average daily demand is this site's dispatches of the product over the last 90 days, in the product's stock unit, divided by 90. Dispatches at other sites are not counted.
- The weekly forecast error is the root mean square of what the forecast was out by, over the 12 newest scored weeks for this product at this site, each week counted once. Root mean square, not the spread of the errors: a forecast that was always 10 high has no spread at all, and used to be treated as perfect. A product the forecast handles well gets a small buffer; an erratic one gets a large one. At least four scored weeks are needed, or the policy says “Not enough history to calculate yet.”
- √((Lead Time Days + Review Frequency Days) ÷ 7) scales that weekly error to the period the buffer has to cover. The error is weekly, so what it is scaled by is the number of weeks, not the number of days.
- z(Service Level %) is 1.28 at 90%, 1.65 at 95%, 1.88 at 97% and 2.33 at 99%. A service level that is not one of those four falls back to 1.65.
Forecast Based buffers change at this release, and usually fall a long way. Two faults in that formula are fixed. The weekly error was scaled by the number of days the buffer had to cover rather than the number of weeks, which made every Forecast Based safety stock roughly 2.6 times too high; and the error itself was the spread of the absolute misses, so a forecast that was consistently wrong in one direction scored as accurate and earned no buffer at all. The z for a 97% service level was also 1.96 rather than 1.88. The next forecast run recalculates every Dynamic and Forecast Based policy, so the figures will move on their own — and because reorder points and stock alerts are built on them, which products alert can change with them. This is the correction landing, not the buffer being cut by hand.
The two calculated figures are read-only when the method is Dynamic or Forecast Based, and carry the hint "Calculated after each forecast run." They are worked out again after every completed forecast for the site, and again whenever you save the policy. Switching the method back to Fixed unlocks them and drops the record of the last calculation.
The status line under the heading
Above the form, a small grey line tells you where the calculated figures came from, or why there are none.
| It reads | Which means |
|---|---|
| Last calculated 17 Sep 2026 | The figures on screen were worked out on that date, in your account's time zone. A date well in the past means no forecast has run for this site since. |
| Not enough history to calculate yet. | The policy keeps the figures it already has rather than being overwritten with a zero that looks like an answer. Dynamic needs at least one dispatch of the product in the last 90 days; Forecast Based needs that and at least four scored forecast periods. |
| No conversion from CTN to KG for Custard Square; not calculated | Some of the product's dispatch history is recorded in a unit that cannot be converted to its stock unit, so the demand is unknown rather than smaller. Nothing is calculated and the figures are kept. Add the missing unit conversion on the product, then save the policy. |
| ⚠ No conversion from CTN to KG for Custard Square; stock alerts paused | The nightly alert sweep could not convert this product's stock either, so no stock alerts are raised for it at all until the conversion exists. A partly converted on-hand would be a made-up number, so nothing is guessed. The line clears itself on the first clean sweep. |
How much to order at a time
Four fields on this screen shape the quantity a procurement plan puts on an order: Order Multiple, Min Order Qty, Max Order Qty and Max Stock Qty, with Safety Stock Qty added as the buffer to cover and Lead Time Days deciding when to order.
They are applied in a fixed order, and the supplier's own terms take precedence over two of them. The full precedence — and what each note on a procurement line means — is documented once, under How the order quantity is decided in Procurement Plans. Where to enter the supplier's Unit Cost, Lead Time and Minimum Order Qty is in Preparing products and suppliers for planning.
Planning around equipment capacity
Max Batch Qty is the one field on this screen that is about your plant rather than your stock. It states the largest quantity that can be produced in a single run — a mixing vessel that holds 300 kg, an oven that takes so many trays.
When production planning works out what a period needs, it fills batches to this limit and puts whatever is left in a final batch, so the number of works orders is the fewest your equipment allows:
| Required in the period | Max Batch Qty | Works orders planned |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 kg | 300 kg | 300 + 300 + 300 + 100 |
| 1,000 kg | 250 kg | 250 + 250 + 250 + 250 |
| 280 kg | 300 kg | 280 — one works order, under the limit |
| 1,000 kg | blank or 0 | 1,000 — one works order, no limit set |
The limit is per site. The same product made at two plants can carry a different ceiling at each, because the policy belongs to the site — which is the reason this field lives here rather than on the recipe.
A limit below the recipe yield cannot be honoured. If the recipe makes 4 kg a run and the limit is set to 3 kg, there is no way to run less than one recipe. Planning uses the recipe yield instead and notes it on the line, rather than producing a plan that could not be made.
Max Batch Qty limits one batch. How much a line can make in a day is set on the production line itself — Capacity per day ("The most this line can make in a day, in the unit below. Production plans warn when a day is planned past it. Leave blank for no limit.") and Capacity unit ("The unit the capacity is measured in, e.g. kg."), under Setup → Inventory → Production Lines. Choose the line in Production line here, and the production plan puts this product’s works orders on it and checks each day’s total against that capacity. See Line capacity.
Those two fields are saved together, and the line refuses two things. A capacity of nothing is not a capacity, so 0 or a negative number is rejected — “must be greater than 0”; leave the field blank for no limit instead. And a capacity with no unit says “2,000” of nothing, which could be read against a works order in kilograms or in each, so entering Capacity per day without a Capacity unit is rejected too — “must be chosen: which unit is the capacity measured in?” It is asked for rather than guessed, because either guess silently over- or under-loads the line.
What reads a policy
| Reader | Uses |
|---|---|
| Forecasting | Forecast Method, Seasonality Period, Forecast Horizon and History Used. A product with no active policy is not forecast at all. |
| Stock Alerts | Reorder Point Qty, Safety Stock Qty, Max Stock Qty, Shelf Life Days, Lead Time Days, Waste Threshold % and Review Frequency Days. |
| Production Planning | Max Batch Qty, to split a period's requirement into works orders it is possible to run; and Production line, which is the line each of those works orders is planned on. |
| Procurement Plans | Safety Stock Qty as the buffer to cover, Max Stock Qty as a cap, Order Multiple to round up, Min and Max Order Qty, and Lead Time Days when the supplier records none. |
| Planning Cycle | Reorder Point Qty for the Stock health figure — and only a policy that has one is counted, so leaving the field blank keeps the product out of the figure rather than scoring it as unhealthy. Also the strictest Waste Threshold % set on the site’s policies, to colour Waste rate. |
Availability and permissions
- Stock Policies needs the Demand Planning module, which itself needs Manufacturing and Orders. See Getting started with Demand Planning.
- Viewing is open to admin, external user, production manager, production user, QA manager, dispatch manager and demand planner.
- Creating, editing and deleting a policy needs admin, production manager or demand planner.
- A site is not a security boundary. The site selector decides which site’s policies you are looking at and working on, and it keeps another site’s out of your way. It is a working scope, not a wall: a user who can open this screen and change site can read that site’s figures. The real boundary is the account — nothing belonging to another account is reachable at all. Do not use sites to keep figures from a colleague; use roles.
Things to know
- One policy per product per site. Sites are planned independently, so the same product can hold different rules at different sites, and only the policy belonging to a site is ever consulted for that site.
- 0 or blank means "no rule", not a limit of zero. A policy with no reorder point simply never raises a reorder alert; one with no Max Order Qty is never capped.
- Changing the defaults in Forecast Settings does not alter policies that already exist — only the next new one. Edit an existing policy on the policy itself. An account default of 0 is treated as "not set", so a 0 default leaves the built-in starting value in place.
- Every quantity is in the product's stock unit. Stock held in cartons or on pallets is converted before it is compared to these figures, and a quantity that cannot be converted is refused rather than counted — see the status line above the form.
- Percentages and periods are bounded. Waste Threshold % must be between 0 and 100; Forecast Horizon and History Used must be greater than zero; quantities and day counts cannot be negative.
- Deactivating is not deleting. An inactive policy stops being consulted immediately — no forecast, no alerts, no calculation — but keeps its history.
- Changing a policy does not rewrite existing plans. A plan is a snapshot; regenerate it to pick up new rules.