Planster Onboarding Guide

Welcome to Planster!

This guide will walk you through the key steps of your onboarding process, from creating your account to configuring your products and suppliers. By the end of this guide, you will be ready to start planning.

You will receive a welcome email from Planster. Click the personalized sign-up link in the email to create your account.

The Planster menu, located on the left side of your screen, helps you quickly navigate through key sections of the app. Here's a brief description of each menu item:

• Home: Your dashboard, providing a quick overview of your inventory and planning data.

• Supply Plan:
  View and manage your inventory purchase recommendations, review projected inventory levels, and create purchase or work orders.

• Channel Setup:
  Set up, view, and adjust your inventory forecasts. Choose between Retail and Direct-to-Consumer forecasting models.

• Logistics:
  Track your inventory movements, manage inbound shipments, and oversee your logistics activities.

• Products:
  Add, edit, and manage your product catalog, including setting MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity).

• Bill of Materials:
  Allocate raw ingredients to finished goods, or pair skus together into kits to plan for bundle selling.

• Warehouses:

  View your warehouses. Manage lead times, and safety stock levels and target inventory levels for each product in each warehouse. 

• Integrations:
  Review the status of your WMS or 3PL integrations and manage data synchronization settings.

• Suppliers:
  Manage your supplier information, assign SKUs to suppliers, and ensure accurate purchase planning.

• Account:

  Manage your Planster account details, settings, and preferences.

While our Shopify and WMS integration handles most setup automatically, there are a few key fields that require manual configuration to ensure accurate inventory forecasting.

Navigate to the Products page to set up critical fields for each product:

Minimum Order Quantity

• This is the minimum amount your supplier allows you to order at one time

• To edit: Double-click on the field and enter the value

• This information is essential for accurate order planning

Product Categories

• You can organize your products into different categories

• This categorization will be reflected in the navigation menu

• By default, all SKUs are listed as "Uncategorized"

• Grouping products by category makes it easier to manage your inventory

For each warehouse, you'll need to configure three parameters that may vary by location:

Safety Stock Days

• The minimum inventory level (in days of supply) you want to maintain

• When inventory drops below this threshold, Planster will recommend placing an order

• Can be different for each product at each warehouse

• Example: You may set a safety stock of 21 days for products at your primary warehouse and 20 days at your wholesale warehouse.

Target Inventory Days

• The desired inventory level (in days of supply) that replenishment orders should reach

• Planster uses this value to calculate recommended order quantities

• Based on dynamic demand forecasting that adjusts with sales patterns

Required Lead Time

• The average time it takes to receive a shipment from your supplier
• Can be based on your tracking data or estimated from experience
• To edit: Double-click on the field and enter the value in days

3. Supplier Configuration - Adding Suppliers

• Navigate to the Suppliers section

• Click the "Add" button to create a new supplier

• Enter the following information:

• Supplier name

• Address

• Contact person

• Contact information

• You can add multiple suppliers simultaneously

• Click "Save and Continue" when finished

Assigning Products to Suppliers

• After saving a supplier, you'll need to allocate products

• Use the "Set Product Information" option

• Select which SKUs this supplier provides:

• You can select all products at once

• Deselect specific products as needed

• Click "Save" to confirm assignments

When an order is recommended, Planster will show you a list of suppliers who provide that product, allowing you to easily choose which supplier to use.