Procurement Intelligence for Dolibarr

Smarter Purchasing, Inventory Planning & Supplier Intelligence

Know what to buy, from whom, how much and by when — with the calculation behind every recommendation.

Purchasing teams rarely suffer from a lack of data. The real problem is turning that data into a reliable buying decision. A buyer has to answer questions such as:

• What needs to be purchased today — and which requirements can wait?
• How much should we order?
• Which supplier can deliver in time — and is the cheapest supplier really the best choice?
• Are we already covered by incoming purchase orders?
• Are we buying too much because future demand is being pulled forward?
• Which supplier orders are late or stuck?
• Which products are at risk of stockout, and which are tying up cash without moving?
• Are supplier prices increasing? Which suppliers are consistently late?
• Should purchasing be driven by confirmed demand, forecasts, or both?

Procurement Intelligence turns the operational data already stored in Dolibarr — sales orders, stock, supplier prices, purchase orders, receipts, manufacturing orders and BOMs — into a practical purchasing plan:

What to buy → How much → From whom → By when

Every recommendation includes the calculation behind it, so the buyer can understand and verify why it was made.

From ERP Data to an Actionable Buying Plan

Designed around the real workflow of a purchasing team:

Demand → Available stock → Incoming supply → Lead time → Supplier → Required quantity → Buy-by date → Draft purchase order

It does not simply show historical charts: it turns current sales commitments and inventory conditions into actions your team can execute. The module combines confirmed customer demand, manufacturing requirements, kit-component demand, current inventory, incoming supplier orders, supplier lead times, price breaks, minimum order quantities, historical demand, safety stock, reorder point, EOQ and supplier reliability.

The result is a buying recommendation that can be investigated, adjusted and converted into draft supplier purchase orders for final human review. Nothing is validated or sent automatically.

The Four Questions Every Buyer Needs Answered

What should I buy?

Products where current or expected demand is no longer safely covered by stock and incoming supply.

How much should I buy?

Suggested quantities consider demand, usable stock, incoming supplier deliveries, minimum order quantities and supplier price breaks.

From whom should I buy?

Suppliers are compared on price at the required quantity, lead time, expected arrival, previous purchase price and reliability.

By when should I order?

Each requirement receives a buy-by date based on the date the stock is required and the supplier's lead time — so you can distinguish what must be ordered now from demand that can safely wait.

Order-Driven Purchasing — Not Guess-Driven Purchasing

Confirmed-order planning respects when demand is actually due. For each product:

• Planning window = supplier lead time + optional planning buffer. Only demand inside that window is purchased now; demand due months later is not pulled into today's plan — avoiding early purchasing and cash tied up in stock.
• Buy-by date = earliest required date − supplier lead time. If it has already passed, the requirement is Critical; as it approaches, urgency is classified High, Medium or Low.

Order Now — Your Daily Purchasing Workspace

Answers the question "What should we buy today?" Recommendations are grouped by supplier. Each line shows the product, urgency, buy-by date, physical stock, incoming quantity, net stock, reorder point, suggested quantity, supplier unit price, estimated purchase value and recommendation source. Only products requiring a positive quantity are listed.

"Why this quantity?" — every recommendation explained

Buyers never have to trust a number blindly. The explanation shows the customer orders, manufacturing and kit requirements creating the demand, their dates and quantities, the incoming purchase orders counted with their arrival dates, current stock, lead time, planning buffer and the full arithmetic:

Demand due within lead time − Available stock − Incoming supply arriving in time = Quantity to purchase now

Recommendations become explainable to purchasing managers, finance teams and auditors.

Three Flexible Planning Modes

• Confirmed demand — purchase against real commitments: confirmed sales orders, manufacturing components and kit components due within the planning window.
• Forecast planning — statistical replenishment: buy when usable stock falls to or below the reorder point, using historical consumption, safety stock, reorder point and EOQ.
• Combined planning — both, taking the larger requirement rather than adding them together, so the same demand is never purchased twice.

Suited to make-to-order businesses, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, mixed make-to-stock / make-to-order environments and light manufacturers.

Prepare Purchase Orders Before Anything Is Created

Review every line first: change quantities, select a different supplier, remove lines, compare supplier offers, see minimum quantities, lead times and expected arrival dates, and spot suppliers that cannot arrive in time. If the cheapest supplier is too slow and another can meet the requirement, the on-time supplier is preselected.

Create draft purchase orders then creates one draft supplier order per supplier, with the expected delivery date set. You open them in standard Dolibarr to review, validate and send. Nothing is validated or transmitted to the supplier automatically.

Supplier Selection Based on More Than Price

A lower unit price is not useful if the material arrives after the customer needs it. Every supplier of a product is compared on price at the actual quantity, minimum order quantity, total order value, lead time, expected arrival, customer need date, historical purchase price and reliability — labelled Cheapest, Fastest, Recommended or Too late. The recommendation is the lowest-cost supplier that meets the need date; if none can, the fastest.

Know the cost of delivering on time

When the cheapest supplier is too slow, the trade-off is made visible: Supplier B costs more, but arrives before the customer requirement, while Supplier A would arrive too late — and by how much. Management can decide with the facts.

Minimum quantities and price breaks

Recommended quantities and unit prices follow the supplier's minimum order quantities and tiered prices, so recommendations match what can actually be ordered.

Order Book — See Future Shortfalls Before They Happen

A time-phased view of demand and supply per product: stock on hand, quantity on order, committed demand, net available quantity, next delivery, projected shortfall, lead time and earliest buy-by date. The product view projects stock week by week or month by month — answering "When will this product actually run short?", not just "Is stock low today?"

Reorder Planning With Transparent Formulas

Using the last 12 complete months of demand history:

• Safety stock — from demand variability, lead time and the desired service level.
• Reorder point — expected demand during the lead time plus safety stock.
• Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) — balances ordering costs with annual holding costs.

Each product view shows the formula and the numbers used. If Dolibarr's own "Stock limit for alert" is higher than the calculated reorder point, the effective reorder point is raised — and the page shows why.

Statistics use complete months

The current, incomplete month is excluded from averages, forecasts, seasonality, XYZ analysis, safety stock, reorder point and EOQ — halfway through a month sales would otherwise look half their normal level.

Demand Forecasting

• Simple and weighted moving average, with the months used, demand per month, weights, result, demand history and trend direction.
• Seasonality per month, starting from the product's first sale (needs 12 months of history) — separating a true increase from a recurring pattern.
• Forecast accuracy — forecasts replayed against past actual demand, with error and accuracy.
• Historical or blended basis — blended adds next month's already confirmed customer orders to the statistical expectation.

Manufacturing and BOM Planning

• Manufacturing orders — components still required by open manufacturing orders count as demand.
• Kits — a sold kit that is not purchasable itself is exploded into its components.
• Multi-level BOM explosion (up to five levels) — choose a finished product and quantity to see each component, BOM path, depth, required quantity, stock, shortage and shortage value.

Complete Inventory Intelligence

• Inventory health score (0–100 and a grade) from four parts: products not at stockout risk, stocked products not dead, stock turnover and products with stock available.
• ABC analysis — products ranked by revenue contribution (configurable limits).
• XYZ analysis — demand stability: X stable, Y variable, Z erratic, N no demand.
• ABC-XYZ matrix — 12 clickable segments, e.g. AX (high value, predictable: high availability) or CZ (low value, unpredictable: buy against real demand).
• Dead stock with the value tied up, and slow-moving stock.
• Stock aging by warehouse from the last recorded receipt.
• Stockout risk — current stock vs daily usage and supplier lead time.
• Overstock — stock value above the desired level.

Per-warehouse analysis

Analyse all warehouses or one; the choice is remembered across pages. In warehouse mode, company-wide purchase orders whose receiving warehouse is not yet known are not subtracted from a warehouse's requirement — uncertain supply never causes an under-purchase.

Purchase Order Control

• Open purchase orders — awaiting approval, approved but not sent, ordered, partly received; % received, expected date, days until due or overdue, outstanding value. Filters: late, due within 7 days, no delivery date, not sent to the supplier.
• Stuck orders — orders waiting several days for approval or never sent: the order exists in the ERP, but is the supplier actually working on it?
• Late supplier orders — days late, outstanding products, quantities and value: a focused follow-up list.

Supplier Performance Scorecards

Over 3, 6, 12 or 24 months: number of purchase orders, value ordered, on-time delivery %, average delay, promised vs actual lead time, fill rate and an A–D grade (once enough orders are measured).

Promised vs actual lead time: the price list may say 7 days while receipts show 13. An optional planning setting uses the measured lead time when a supplier is consistently slower — making plans realistic. Reliability is also shown when comparing suppliers for a current purchase, linking price, speed and reliability.

Spend Intelligence

• Spend by month, supplier and product, based on purchase orders or supplier invoices, over 3 / 6 / 12 / 24 months, compared with the previous period.
• Supplier concentration and 80/20 — share and cumulative share per supplier, the suppliers making about 80 % of spend, top-supplier concentration: where negotiation or supplier-risk review pays off.
• Purchase price changes — latest net price vs previous purchase and current price list: % change, absolute difference and impact on the latest purchased quantity.

Eight Data-Quality Checks for Purchasing

1. Active products without a supplier price
2. Supplier prices without a price
3. Negative stock
4. Supplier prices without lead time
5. Open sales orders without delivery date
6. Open purchase orders without expected delivery date
7. Suggested purchases not marked for purchase
8. Forgotten draft purchase orders

Each check explains why it matters and links to the Dolibarr record to correct.

One Purchase Alert Report — Six Sections

Critical purchases · Reorder needed · Below safety stock · Late supplier orders · Stockout risk · Dead stock — you choose which sections to include. The report is shown on the Alerts page exactly as it is sent, with new lines marked.

• Inside Dolibarr — no mail server required. A bell in the top bar shows unread reports; My purchase alerts shows the current report, new lines and previous reports.
• By e-mail (optional) through Dolibarr's own mail settings, one individual message per recipient.
• Recipients: Dolibarr users, user groups (people added later are included automatically) and additional addresses.
• Timing: every 12 hours, daily or weekly at a chosen hour and weekday — or only when something new appears, to avoid repetitive notifications.
• Three ways to run: background checks while Dolibarr is in use (no setup), the module's own server command (shown ready to copy) or Dolibarr scheduled jobs. A run lock prevents the same report being sent twice.
• History (180 days): time, contents, new lines, recipients, e-mails delivered or failed, read status and trigger source.

Designed for the Real Purchasing Routine

• Every morning: Dashboard and Needs attention, Critical and High purchases, late supplier orders — prepare the purchase orders and validate them in Dolibarr.
• Every week: orders due soon, orders approved but not sent, data problems, products whose cheapest supplier cannot deliver in time.
• Every month: supplier performance and C/D suppliers, spend concentration, price increases, dead stock and excess inventory, ABC-XYZ classes and replenishment policy.

Alerts keep watching between these reviews.

Who It Is For

• Wholesalers and distributors — buy against confirmed orders, prevent stockouts, reduce over-ordering, manage multiple suppliers, control dead stock, follow late purchase orders.
• Retailers — statistical replenishment, safety stock, ABC / XYZ, forecasting, supplier comparison.
• Light manufacturers — manufacturing component demand, BOM explosion, lead times, component shortages.
• Purchasing managers and buyers — Order Now, "Why this quantity?", Prepare purchase orders, supplier comparison, buy-by dates, alert reports, supplier scorecards, spend.
• Owners and management — dashboard, inventory health, spend, supplier scorecards, stock-risk indicators, alerts.

Transparent, Safe and Secure

• Transparent calculations: quantity formulas, demand and supply sources, buy-by dates, safety stock, reorder point, EOQ, forecasts, seasonality, accuracy, inventory risk and supplier metrics can all be inspected.
• Safe by design: the module reads your Dolibarr data. It never validates or sends purchase orders, changes stock, or modifies sales orders or invoices. The only business record it creates on request is a draft supplier order, which you review and validate in the standard Dolibarr workflow.
• Permissions: Read · Modify settings / create draft purchase orders · Export. Creating drafts also requires Dolibarr's own right to create supplier orders. Forms use Dolibarr security tokens; settings are kept per company (entity).
• CSV exports: Order Now, Order Book, reorder policy, ABC, XYZ, ABC-XYZ, dead stock, slow stock, stock aging, stockout risk, forecast, open and late purchase orders, spend and price changes.
• Five complete languages: English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

Includes Stock Intelligence Capabilities

Procurement Intelligence includes the inventory and planning features of Stock Intelligence 1.9.1 — health score, ABC, XYZ, ABC-XYZ matrix, dead / slow stock, aging, stockout risk, forecasting, reorder policy, BOM explosion and Order Book — and adds supplier performance, supplier selection, spend, purchase price changes, open and late supplier orders, data checks and the purchase-alert workflow. Both modules can stay installed side by side.

Technical Requirements

• Module version: 1.10.0
• Dolibarr 18.0 to 23.x (tested on 18.0.2, 21.0.2 and 23.0.3)
• PHP 7.0 to 8.4
• MySQL / MariaDB (PostgreSQL not supported)
• Required Dolibarr modules: Products, Stocks, Sales orders, Purchase orders. Optional: Manufacturing / BOM

Need Help? We Are Here for You

Support: for further assistance, please contact us at support@siliconblaze.com — we are happy to help with installation, setup and any question about the module.

Video demo: watch the full Procurement Intelligence demo on YouTube: Procurement Intelligence for Dolibarr — What to Buy, From Whom, How Much & By When · more guides on youtube.com/@SiliconBlaze

Website: learn more at siliconblaze.com

Product page: features, screenshots, quick start guide and FAQ at siliconblaze.com/projects/procurement-intelligence

Custom ERP: need a custom Dolibarr / ERP solution, integration or development? Contact support@siliconblaze.com — SiliconBlaze builds custom ERP solutions for your business.