Inventory short for a quote or order

This Watch checks the stock behind the things you have quoted. If the supplier does not have enough of a part to fill the quantity you sold, you want to know before the customer approves, not after the purchase order bounces. In Settings → Workspace → Watches it sits under Supplier Integration as SI-4.

What it watches for

• A part on an open quote whose available quantity at the supplier is below the quantity you quoted.
• The same problem on an order you have not placed yet, or on a purchase order that is placed but not yet confirmed.
• A quoted part that has turned buy-to-order and can no longer make the requested date.

Each point carries the future-availability date and quantity where the supplier publishes them, and the replenishment lead time, so the next conversation has real options in it.

Why it matters

Short stock is the single most common reason a promotional order gets reworked. It is discovered late because nobody checks inventory twice: once at quote time, and then not again while the customer takes a week to decide. In that week the stock goes. Re-quoting a color or splitting a run is normal work; doing it under a deadline, after the customer has already told their boss what they are getting, is not.

This Watch books as Avoided on the Found ledger.

What it needs connected

• Required: a supplier feed — the stock numbers come from there and nowhere else.
• Required: a mailbox — the quote itself is the document you emailed the customer, and that is where Scout reads the parts, colors, sizes and quantities you actually quoted.
• Helpful: a CRM.

Both of those are genuinely required. Stock with no quote to compare it against is trivia, and a quote with no stock behind it is a guess.

What the point looks like

A point is one item Scout raises with the proof behind it. This one arrives in the Inbox as a recommendation:

Not enough navy left for the Whisker Creek Vet quote — Whisker Creek Vet · in-hands Sept 26

The quote to Dr. Priya Lin covers 480 units in navy. The supplier shows 260 available today, with 1,200 more expected on September 8 — eighteen days before the requested in-hands date, which the current lead time still makes. Checked this morning.

Evidence: the sent quote in Gmail with its lines · the supplier's available and future quantities with the time they were read · the published lead time.

Prepared by Scout: an options email for the customer — wait for the restock, split the run, or move the color.

The settings that tune it

None. This Watch compares two numbers, so there is nothing to make it more or less sensitive. Its settings block reads No adjustable thresholds.

When it arrives

This is one of the launch-wave Watches, and one of the four built on Scout's supplier engine. It is not raising points today — its row in Settings reads Coming soon. You can turn it on now; there is nothing else to configure. We do not publish a date for it.

Good to know

• Scout reads stock; it never holds, reserves or orders it.
• Because both a supplier feed and a mailbox are required, this Watch shows under the Needs attention filter in Settings until you have both.
• Roughly a quarter of the suppliers Scout can reach publish an inventory service. Where yours does not, the point says so for that supplier rather than pretending the stock is fine.
• Stock is re-read while a quote is open, not just on the day it went out. That is the whole value of the Watch.
• A price that changes or expires on an open quote is SI-5; the last safe day to place the order is SI-6.