Overview

A fast-growing wellness CPG brand needed a reliable way to understand demand, prevent stockouts, and manage inventory as they scaled. Their sales were strong, but they lacked the operational infrastructure to forecast accurately or manage cashflow tied to inventory purchases.

I was hired to design and implement a complete, end-to-end reporting and planning system—linking sales, inventory, forecasting, cashflow, and buying decisions into one cohesive operational engine.

The Challenge

The brand struggled with:

• No centralized reporting for SKU performance

• Poor visibility into inventory velocity and warehouse movement

• No reliable forecasting model to plan buys

• Difficulty predicting cashflow needs tied to inventory

• Data scattered across Metorik, ShipBob, and spreadsheets

• Manual workflows that frequently broke formulas

As a result, they were at risk of both stockouts and over-buying—two major threats to a scaling CPG business.

The Solution

Over 2 months, I built a fully integrated reporting + planning infrastructure that connected sales, inventory, and financial planning into a single source of truth.

1. Metorik Sales Performance Reporting

I created a multi-tab reporting system that included:

• Monthly & YTD sales dashboards

• SKU-level unit and revenue analysis

• Coupon performance and promotional impact

• Retail calendar alignment (week-over-week and YOY comparables)

• Automated formulas and a step-by-step updating process

• “Data dump” tabs to allow weekly updates without breaking logic

This allowed the brand to understand what was selling, why, and how trends were shifting in real time.

2. ShipBob Inventory & Velocity Dashboard

I built a dynamic inventory model that included:

• 12-week SKU velocity tracker

• Weeks of supply analysis

• Warehouse-level inventory movement

• Finished goods + materials tracking

• Color-coding for over/underperforming SKUs

• Automated warehouse graphs to visualize distribution

For the first time, the brand could proactively identify SKU risk and plan inventory buys around demand patterns.

3. Open-to-Buy (OTB) Planning System

I developed a complete OTB suite that connected revenue targets to unit buys and cashflow:

• Revenue → unit forecasting by SKU

• OTB summary dashboard

• Buy Log with automated totals

• Cashflow forecasting (MSRP, cost, and payment timing)

• Actuals vs projections

• Target vs projected ending inventory

• SKU productivity modeling

• Automatic restock-rate calculations

This became the company’s central planning tool for inventory, helping them avoid stockouts, allocate cash strategically, and scale more confidently.