Demand forecasting
Demand forecasting takes the messy guesswork out of “how much stock do I need?”. It builds a forecast from your historical sales, factors in your vendor lead times and current stock levels, and tells you what to reorder, in what quantity, by what date.
This is a Beta feature. It’s available to all subscription tiers as part of an active rollout. The frontend is being built in waves — some controls (e.g., velocity-settings overrides) may move or change shape between releases.
In this guide:
- Open the forecast view
- Read a forecast for one SKU
- Override velocity settings
- Trigger a reorder
Prerequisites
- At least 30 days of sales history (60+ recommended).
- Vendor lead times configured for the SKUs you want to forecast. See Lead times.
- Beta access — visible to everyone; flagged Beta.
Step 1: Open the forecast view
Go to Inventory → Forecasting in the sidebar.
The list shows every active SKU with these columns:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Daily run-rate | Smoothed average daily units sold. |
| Days-of-cover | Available stock divided by run-rate. |
| Reorder by | Date by which a PO must be raised to avoid stockout, given the lead time. |
| Suggested qty | The recommended PO quantity. |
| Confidence | Hilal’s confidence in the forecast (low / medium / high), driven by data volume and variance. |
Sort by Reorder by ascending to see what’s most urgent.
Step 2: Read a forecast for one SKU
Click any row to open the per-SKU forecast detail.
The detail panel shows:
- History chart — actual daily sales, smoothed.
- Projection chart — the forecast over the next 90 days.
- Stock-out date — when, given current stock and run-rate, you’ll run out.
- Reorder window — the window during which a PO needs to be raised.
- Component view (for bundles) — per-component forecasts, since the bundle’s bottleneck is the slowest-moving component.
Step 3: Override velocity settings
If you know something the forecast doesn’t (a Prime Day promo coming up, a supplier issue dropping a competitor’s stock), override:
- Multiplier — bump expected demand by a percentage (e.g., +50% for a Prime Day month).
- Floor — minimum daily run-rate.
- Ceiling — maximum daily run-rate.
- Seasonality profile — pick a preset (none / mild / strong) or define custom monthly weights.
Save the override on the SKU; it persists until you remove it.
Step 4: Trigger a reorder
When a SKU’s forecast says Reorder by is within 7 days, the row gets a Reorder now button. Click it: Hilal pre-fills a PO with the suggested vendor, quantity, and date. You can edit before sending. → Purchase orders
Limitations during Beta
- Forecasts get noticeably more accurate after 60+ days of history.
- The seasonality presets are a starting point — for highly seasonal SKUs, plan to tune the custom profile.
- The frontend is in active development; expect minor UI changes between releases.
Troubleshooting
- “Confidence: low” everywhere. Either you don’t have enough history yet or your sales pattern is very volatile. Tighten the velocity multiplier manually until enough data accumulates.
- Reorder date is in the past. You’re already late. Raise the PO immediately — Hilal still suggests a quantity.
- Forecast disagrees with my gut. Check the history chart for outliers (a one-off bulk sale skewing the run-rate). The detail view lets you exclude specific dates.