Lead time can vary significantly depending on the supplier you choose for each product. Hence, it's essential to recognize that different items in your catalog may have distinct lead times. Additionally, when it comes to stock buffers, the threshold for running low and overstock levels may differ based on the product's performance and importance.

To tailor these settings to each product's needs, it's crucial to have your suppliers set up within Genie. If you have yet to create suppliers, we have a separate guide available to help you import that information.

Taking a look at one of our established suppliers, Nike, we can observe the lead time set within their profile.

Comparatively, another supplier, UK Sports Imports, has a different lead time of fifteen days, demonstrating the variability between suppliers.

The first step is understanding how to apply these distinct lead times, which differ from the general settings to your products.

Step 1: To begin, search for the relevant products within your inventory table and select all variants that are applicable.

Step 2: Now, select the purple action button just to the right of the search labeled "manage suppliers." This will allow you to add suppliers to the group of products you have selected.

Step 3: Select the "add suppliers" dropdown, and choose the supplier you would like this product to be associated with.

Genie is designed to automatically suggest the most relevant supplier for a given product. In this example, Genie suggests Nike as the primary supplier. You also have the option to add additional suppliers to the products, giving you the flexibility to switch between them as needed.

Selecting one of your suppliers to be the primary for a product will assign their specific lead time to that product rather than using the general insight settings.

Now, let's explore another method of configuring lead times on an individual basis.

Within Genie, you can access a product's profile from multiple areas, be it a purchase order, a report, or directly from the inventory table. This is done by clicking on the product name, prompting a slide-out panel to appear, displaying core information about the product.

Step 1: Click on the name of the product you want to add a supplier to.

Step 2: Navigate to the tab labeled "settings."

Step 3: From here select "Add supplier" and choose the supplier you want to use for that product and click add.

This will add the supplier you chose to a list of suppliers within the product profile. You should now see your primary supplier and their lead time is associated with that product.

It is important to always have a main supplier associated with your products, as Genie uses the main supplier for the calculations. But you are always free to switch between suppliers at any time, depending on your needs. This is a quick and easy way to add context to your lead times.

Now, let's look at products that are selling particularly well. Assuming you have configured your grading insight correctly, you can find these products by filtering your inventory by grade.

Now, you can select the product you want to configure, and then navigate to the settings tab once more. If you scroll down you will see a section called "Stock level settings." By default, the "Use your global insights settings" box will be ticked.

When the box is checked, it displays the global settings that have been previously configured, as demonstrated in our earlier guide. However, should there be a need to override these settings for specific circumstances—such as dealing with a high-demand product where a larger stock buffer is desired—simply uncheck the box to input a new stock buffer value.

For instance, if the goal is to maintain a minimum of 30 days of stock at all times to prevent inventory from falling below a certain level, 30 days can be set as the running low threshold.

In situations where carrying a larger inventory is feasible, such as keeping 60 days of stock—which includes both the stock buffer and the lead time—it can be adjusted accordingly.

To illustrate, with a stock buffer of 30 days and a lead time of 50 days, setting the running low threshold at 60 days would not be practical. Instead, it would be more sensible to set the threshold at 80 days or higher. In this example, setting it to 100 days would be appropriate.

Regarding the overstock threshold, if the running low point is at 100 days, one might decide that carrying up to 200 days of inventory is acceptable for being considered overstocked. Think of the overstocked and running low thresholds as upper and lower limits for the amount of product you want on hand. Whereas lead times help determine when to expect more products and stock buffers ensure that you have enough to continue making sales.

With these new metrics applied, all subsequent calculations for your products will utilize the updated settings. You will see data showing a certain amount of days under the "Days to order." Genie bases this number on the current stock on hand, average daily sales, lead time associated with the product, and the stock buffer. Depending on what you set your running low threshold to you will see it indicated in the "Status" column to ensure you know what stock levels look like at a glance.

This comprehensive approach to configuring lead times, insight settings, and associating suppliers to your products at an individual level ensures that each product is monitored and managed according to its unique requirements, enhancing the efficiency of your inventory management.