As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly calculate how much stock you should order.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your stock-control or spreadsheet system and export current stock, stock already on order, recent usage or sales, product identifiers and supplier details.
   2. Gather the current supplier rules for each item, including lead time, delivery days, minimum order quantity, pack size, order multiple and any storage or shelf-life limit.
   3. Write down the review period, safety-stock rule, planned promotions, seasonal changes, closures and any known supply disruption that could alter demand.
   4. Paste the data and the copyable prompt into a chatbot, keeping units consistent and asking it to flag missing or contradictory figures rather than guessing.
   5. Compare the generated table with the source spreadsheet by checking the stock balance, demand period, lead-time calculation, safety stock and rounding for each item.
   6. Ask a colleague who understands your stock policy and supplier constraints to check the flagged exceptions and approve the final quantities.
   7. Enter only the approved quantities into your purchasing system and compare the draft order with supplier minimums, pack sizes, storage capacity and available cash before sending it.

   Prompt

   Calculate suggested stock order quantities from the data below. Use only the figures and rules I provide, and do not invent missing values. For each item, show current stock, stock already on order, recent demand, forecast demand if supplied, supplier lead time, review period, safety-stock rule, minimum order quantity, order multiple, pack size and the resulting suggested order quantity. State the formula and assumptions used for every item. Flag any missing, contradictory or stale input instead of guessing. Separate items that can be ordered now from items needing a human decision. Round orders up to the supplier's pack size or order multiple where supplied, and explain the rounding. Do not place an order or claim that the result is optimal. Return a table that I can paste into a spreadsheet, followed by a short list of checks I must complete before ordering.
   
   Business context: [business type and storage constraints]
   Ordering date: [date]
   Target service level or safety-stock rule: [rule]
   Review period: [number of days]
   
   Stock and demand data:
   [paste spreadsheet or table]
   
   Supplier and product rules:
   [paste supplier lead times, minimum order quantities, pack sizes, order multiples, price breaks and known constraints]
   
   Planned promotions, closures, seasonal changes or unusual demand:
   [paste details, or write none]
   
   Do not estimate any missing figure. Ask focused questions for information needed to calculate the order quantities.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.