Fulfilment Reports: Tips

You can download reports as comma-separated values (.csv) or text (.txt) format. Using .csv format will let you open reports in a spreadsheet; however, the leading zeros from MSKUs, ASINs and FNSKUs will be dropped. If you require the leading zeros, you can download the file in .txt format. For more information on how to import a .txt file, refer to the help content for the spreadsheet application that you are using.

Making a decision on replenishing inventory requires three primary data points: sales velocity (average weekly sales), on-hand inventory (fulfillable quantity) and inbound quantity. These three data points are used to calculate your inventory coverage before you run out, commonly known as weeks of cover (WOC) and calculated as on-hand inventory plus inbound quantity divided by average weekly sales.

Reports suggested:

Inventory Health Report (which contains the three data points and the WOC), Manage FBA Inventory, and Amazon-Fulfilled Shipments Report.

Best practices:

• Try to keep your weeks of cover between 2 (or the number of weeks it takes you to replenish) and 13 (inventory for a quarter), except when stocking up for the Christmas season and other busy selling periods.
• Review your weeks of cover based on different average weekly sales periods. For example, if your weeks of cover based on the last 30 days of sales is larger than your weeks of cover based on your last week’s sales, it could mean that your sales have been increasing recently and that you will need to replenish your inventory sooner.

To fully reconcile inventory balances, it helps to understand the various inventory events that contribute to your ending balance. There is a report for each inventory event to help you identify the key details. We recommend reviewing inventory events in this order:

Starting inventory balance + received inventory - customer orders + customer returns +/- adjustments - removals = ending inventory balance

Define your starting inventory balance:

Use the Monthly Inventory History report to determine the prior month’s ending inventory balance for an SKU or set of SKUs.

Received inventory:

Use the Received Inventory report to identify inventory receipt credits to add to your starting inventory balance.

Customer orders:

Customer orders generally lead to shipments reducing your overall inventory balance. Use the Customer Shipment Sales report to identify the shipped quantity of an SKU or set of SKUs in a given time period.

Customer returns:

Customer returns can add items back into your inventory pool. Use the FBA Customer Returns report to find out how many units of an SKU or set of SKUs have been returned and credited to your inventory balance in a given time period.

Adjustments:

Occasionally, adjustments are made to your inventory balance because of unexpected fulfilment centre or customer issues. Use the Inventory Adjustments report to track those adjustments.

Reimbursements:

Sometimes adjustments lead to a reimbursement. Use the Reimbursements report to see the items for which you have been reimbursed.

Removals:

Submitting an order to remove inventory from the fulfilment centre will reduce your inventory balance. To see details of the quantity that was removed, use the Removal Shipment Detail report.