Open Pantry
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Open Pantry
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INVENTORY INTELLIGENCENEW

Inventory That Tells You What's Wrong — and What to Order

Inventory Intelligence turns stock data into decisions: stocktakes that show variance in dollars (not just units), shrinkage alerts when stock goes missing, reorder suggestions built from your actual sales, and draft purchase orders raised against your preferred vendor — ready to approve, not build from scratch.

  • Stocktakes with $ variance — see what missing stock actually costs
  • Shrinkage alerts before the pattern becomes a write-off
  • Reorder suggestions that turn into draft POs in one step
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★★★★★  Trusted by 600+ suppliers across Australia

Open Pantry Inventory Intelligence dashboard with dollar-variance stocktake results, a shrinkage alert and reorder suggestions with a draft purchase order
Recommended by:M&J ChickensFood & Drink BusinessFoodService REPGoogle ★★★★★
Built for food & beverage wholesalersMeatSeafoodProduceDairySmallgoodsBakeryBeverages

Stock Problems Announce Themselves Too Late

Stocktake variance in units tells you something's off — not what it costs or where to look

Shrinkage discovered quarterly, cause unknowable by then

Reordering by gut: the fast line runs out, the slow line piles up

POs built by walking the warehouse with a notepad

Count, Catch, Reorder — With The Thinking Built In

1

Stocktake with dollars attached

Count what’s there; the system shows variance per product in units and dollars, so attention goes where the money went.

2

Shrinkage gets flagged

Persistent negative variance patterns raise alerts instead of waiting for the next count to confirm the leak.

3

Reorder suggestions from real velocity

What to order, based on your actual sales and stock position — not a template from January.

4

Draft PO in one step

Accept suggestions and a draft purchase order is raised against your preferred vendor, ready to review and send.

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Stocktakes in dollars

A 40-unit variance on garnish and a 40-unit variance on wagyu are different problems. Dollar-value variance ranks the count by impact, so the expensive discrepancies get investigated first.

Open Pantry stocktake results ranked by dollar-value variance, with the most expensive discrepancy at the top

Shrinkage alerts

Theft, waste, or data error — shrinkage always looks the same at first: stock the system says you have that isn't there. Alerts surface the pattern early, while the cause is still discoverable.

Open Pantry shrinkage alert flagging a persistent negative stock-variance pattern on one product

Reorder suggestions with a memory

Suggestions are built from your sales velocity and current stock — including what's reserved on orders — so "we're about to run out of chicken" arrives before the customer discovers it for you.

  • Each product’s preferred vendor is remembered; accepted suggestions become a prefilled draft PO
  • Ordering stock becomes review-and-send — and the PO feeds 3-way invoice matching when the stock arrives
Open Pantry reorder suggestions from live sales velocity turning into a prefilled draft purchase order to the preferred vendor

Expiry-aware

With lot tracking on, intelligence extends to dates: what’s expiring, what to discount, what to reorder short.

Open Pantry expiry-aware inventory view showing expiring lots and a reorder suggestion reduced to allow for them
More product lines purchased
24%
Your always-on branded store and app put your full range in front of customers, so baskets grow.
Less order-processing cost
95%
AI order capture and auto-invoicing remove the manual keying between order and books.
Fewer picking errors
80%
Tablet pick & pack with FEFO lot and expiry tracking catches shorts and wrong items before they ship.

Real gains suppliers report after moving ordering, fulfilment and invoicing onto Open Pantry.

Stock Drives Ordering, Purchasing And Margins

Vendor Invoice MatchingYour customer catalogueMargin & COGS analytics
M&J Chickens

Trusted by M&J Chickens

M&J Chickens use Open Pantry to move ordering out of calls and messages and into one digital workflow — giving customers a smooth ordering experience and giving the team fewer errors and less admin.

Alex Ortiz — Head of Sales

“Moving to a digital process has transformed our ordering process which is now faster through our own mobile apps.”

Alex Ortiz — Head of Sales
Alex Ortiz — Head of Sales
M&J Chickens
Get a DemoSee how their setup works →

Why not counting in a spreadsheet?

Spreadsheet stocktakes record what you found; they don’t compare it against sales velocity, flag the pattern in the misses, or turn the gap into a purchase order. Intelligence is the part after the count — and it only works when stock, sales and purchasing live in the same system.

A spreadsheet stocktake that stops at the count versus Open Pantry inventory intelligence turning variance into alerts and a draft purchase order

Questions Suppliers Ask About Inventory Intelligence

How often should a food wholesaler do a stocktake?＋
High-turnover perishables benefit from frequent cycle counts (weekly or per-category rotations) with a full stocktake periodically — quarterly or at financial year end. Digital stocktakes lower the cost of counting, so most suppliers move from "big painful annual count" to small regular counts that catch problems early.
Can I see stock variance in dollars, not just units?＋
Yes — that’s the headline feature. Every stocktake line shows variance in units and dollar value, so a count instantly ranks itself by financial impact and you investigate the $400 discrepancy before the $4 one.
How do I find out why my stocktake doesn’t match my system numbers?＋
Start with the dollar-ranked variances, then look at the pattern: one-off large misses suggest receiving or data errors; steady small negative variance on the same lines suggests waste or theft; variance concentrated in one zone points at a process. Regular counts make the pattern visible — that’s most of the diagnosis.
What causes inventory shrinkage in a wholesale warehouse?＋
Four usual suspects: spoilage and waste (biggest in food), receiving errors (invoiced 20, got 18 — see vendor invoice matching), data errors (unrecorded breakage, wrong units), and theft. Dollar-variance stocktakes plus shrinkage alerts narrow down which one you have, per product.
Will it alert me before I run out of a fast-moving line?＋
Yes. Reorder suggestions monitor sales velocity against current stock — including stock reserved on open orders — and surface lines approaching runout, so replenishment starts before the shelf is empty.
How is a reorder point calculated?＋
The classic formula: reorder point = (average daily usage × supplier lead time) + safety stock. Inventory Intelligence does the equivalent continuously from your live sales data, so you don’t maintain the formula per product — the suggestions embody it.
Does it automatically create purchase orders?＋
It creates draft POs — prefilled against each product’s preferred vendor from accepted reorder suggestions. You review and send. Automation does the assembly; you keep the decision.
How does stock reserved on customer orders get counted?＋
Availability accounts for stock committed to open orders, so "on the shelf" and "available to sell" are tracked as different numbers — and reorder logic runs on the honest one.
Can I control what customers see when something is out of stock?＋
Yes — a supplier-wide setting chooses between keep-selling (default) and showing items as out of stock to block ordering. Your stock accuracy directly drives your customer experience.
Do stocktakes work with lot and expiry tracking?＋
Yes — with lot tracking on, counts and intelligence operate at lot level, and expiry data joins the picture: what’s expiring, what to move, what to reorder short.
Can I really ask questions in plain English?＋
Yes — Ask Inventory answers natural-language questions from your live data: what’s running low, what to buy this week, how a product’s been selling. It’s the fastest way in for the questions you’d otherwise build a report for.
Which plan includes inventory management?＋
Inventory management is part of the Pro plan — see pricing for details.

Works Even Better With

Lot, Expiry & FEFO

Counts and intelligence operate at lot level, with expiry joining the picture.

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Vendor Invoice Matching

Draft POs from reorder suggestions feed 3-way matching when stock arrives.

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Margin & COGS Analytics

Stock and cost data in one place power honest margin numbers.

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Let Your Inventory Do The Thinking.

Join 600+ Australian suppliers running their ordering, fulfilment and invoicing on Open Pantry.

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