Inventory Planning

This guide walks through the core workflow in CerioApp: creating a project, telling the app when the project needs units (delivery dates), telling the app when units are available (inventory availability dates), linking the two together (allocations), and finally turning a project into a client-ready quote with the Proposal Builder. It opens with a glossary of key terms and closes with a quick-reference table.

1. The Big Picture — Three Kinds of Dates

Before clicking anything, it helps to understand the three date concepts the whole app is built around. Almost everything else follows from these.

Delivery dates (a Project need). A delivery date is the date the buyer expects the equipment to arrive on their site. A project can have several — for example, 10 units in March and 10 more in June. Together they form the project's delivery schedule: its demand, spread over time.

Availability dates (an Inventory supply). An availability date is the date a batch of inventory physically becomes available to us. One inventory item can have units arriving on multiple dates. Together they describe when that item's supply actually shows up.

Allocations (the link). An allocation connects the two: it reserves units from a specific inventory item for a specific project. Every allocation must be pinned to one of the item's availability dates, telling the app which incoming batch is covering that project. (An inventory item therefore needs at least one availability date before it can be allocated.)

The app constantly compares need (delivery dates) against supply (availability dates, via allocations) and warns you whenever a project is short or late. That comparison is the heart of the tool — see Section 7.

2. Key Definitions

Project status

A project's status describes where it stands in the sales cycle. It controls whether a project appears under the Open Projects tab (statuses Active and Execution) or the Closed Projects tab (Delivered, Lost, or Expired), and how it's counted in the KPIs. Within each tab, large stage-filter buttons at the top let you narrow to one stage in a click — e.g., Active Projects or Execution Projects on the Open tab, Delivered or Lost on the Closed tab.

Active

The project is still being quoted and we have not yet received a purchase order (PO).

Execution

A purchase order has been received (the business is won). The project is now being fulfilled against its delivery schedule.

Delivered

Every scheduled delivery has shipped. The customer owns the product and the sale is complete.

Expired

We did not hear back from the buyer; the opportunity lapsed with no response.

Lost

We did hear back from the buyer, and they will not be moving forward with our bid.

Active and Execution are the two "open" phases you'll work with day to day. Delivered, Expired, and Lost are treated as completed/closed and drop out of the active pipeline.

Dates

Project delivery date

The date the buyer expects the equipment to arrive on their site.

Inventory availability date

The date the inventory physically becomes available to us.

Inventory

Owned

We physically possess the equipment ourselves. In short: we own it.

Pipelined

Units are on order with a vendor but not yet received. Because we don't physically have them and the purchase isn't complete, the order could still be cancelled by the vendor — so pipelined units are less certain than owned units.

3. Creating a New Project

📷 Screenshot: the Open Projects tab with the "+ New Project" button (top-right).

1. Go to the Open Projects tab in the left navigation.
2. Click the + New Project button in the upper-right. (Only visible to editor/admin accounts.)
3. A window titled New Project opens.

📷 Screenshot: the New Project form, with the Project Name field highlighted.

Fill in the details. Only Project Name is required — everything else can be added later:

• Project Name — required; identifies the project everywhere in the app.
• Customer, Salesperson, City/State — the basics for tracking and filtering.
• Probability — likelihood the deal closes. Drives the High Probability metric (projects at 75%+ still in the Active phase).
• Quantity — total units the project is for. Use this field; it's what revenue and allocation totals are based on.
• Status — the project's phase (e.g. Active or Execution — see Section 2).
• Remaining technical fields (power node, emissions, enclosure type, etc.) are optional.

Click Save to create the project.

Editing an existing project

📷 Screenshot: a project row in the table, showing where to click to open it.

Find the project in the Open Projects or Closed Projects tab (use the stage buttons to narrow if needed) and click its row. The same window reopens — and because the project already exists, the Delivery Schedule and Inventory Allocations sections are now visible near the bottom. Make changes and click Save.

4. Adding Delivery Dates (the project's demand)

Delivery dates tell the app when the buyer expects equipment on site. Add them inside the project window, in the Delivery Schedule section. You can add them while creating a project — as long as it has a name and quantity, adding the first delivery date saves the project automatically, so you don't have to save and reopen first.

📷 Screenshot: the Delivery Schedule section with the date / units / notes row and the "+ Add" button.

1. Open the project and scroll to Delivery Schedule. (The project needs a Quantity first — you can't schedule deliveries against a project that has none.)
2. Enter a planned Date (when the buyer expects the units on site), Units (how many are due), and optional Notes. Leave Actual ship date blank until the batch actually ships.
3. Click + Add. The entry drops into the list below.
4. Repeat for each delivery. Staggered delivery (say 10 in March, 10 in June) gets two separate entries.

The summary bar beneath the list totals what you've scheduled, so you can confirm the schedule adds up to the project's overall quantity.

Marking a batch as shipped

Each delivery line tracks both a planned date and an actual ship date. When a batch actually goes out, record it — either click the ✓ button on that line (which stamps today's date) or open Edit and set the exact Actual ship date. The line then shows a green ✓ Shipped badge; the ↩ button undoes it.

5. Adding Inventory Availability Dates (the supply)

For allocations to mean anything, the app needs to know when your inventory units become available to us. You set that on the inventory item itself.

📷 Screenshot: an inventory item open, showing the "Availability Dates" section.

1. Go to the Inventory tab and open an item (or create one and save it first — detail sections appear after the first save).
2. In Availability Dates, enter a Date (when the units physically become available to us), the number of Units arriving, and optional Notes, then click + Add.
3. Add a row for each batch. Units arriving in waves (e.g. 20 in April, 20 in July) get one entry per wave; the total should reflect the item's quantity.

These dates feed the Inventory Availability dashboard chart and the Available Today filter and figure.

6. Adding Allocations (linking supply to demand)

An allocation reserves units from an inventory item for a project. You can do it from either side — both write to the same place, so use whichever is convenient.

Option A — from the Project window

📷 Screenshot: the Inventory Allocations section inside a project (item dropdown, availability-date dropdown, units, Allocate, ⚡ Auto-fill).

1. Open the project and scroll to Inventory Allocations.
2. Select Inventory Item — which item the units come from.
3. Availability Date (required) — pin the allocation to one of the item's availability dates. This tells the app which incoming batch covers this project (this matters for the timing checks in Section 7). If the item has no availability dates yet, add one first — you can't allocate until it does.
4. Enter Units and optional Notes, then click Allocate.

⚡ Auto-fill is a shortcut: pick an inventory item, click Auto-fill, and the app fills the project from that item automatically — earliest availability first, rolling to the next date if one batch isn't enough.

Option B — from the Inventory window

📷 Screenshot: the Project Allocations section inside an inventory item, with the allocation meter and "Select Project" row.

1. Open the inventory item and scroll to Project Allocations.
2. Choose a Project, pin an Availability Date, enter Units and optional Notes, and click Allocate.
3. The allocation meter shows how much of the item is committed vs. still available, so you don't over-commit.

Either way, the allocation appears on both the project and the item, and feeds the Allocations Chart (left nav).

7. How It All Works Together

This is what makes CerioApp more than a list. Once a project has delivery dates and its inventory has availability dates, connected by allocations, the app continuously checks whether every project's demand is covered — on time.

The coverage check

For each project, the app walks the timeline and compares two running totals:

• What's needed by each date — the cumulative sum of the delivery schedule.
• What's covered by each date — the cumulative sum of allocated units, using each allocation's pinned availability date.

If, at any delivery date, covered units haven't caught up to needed units, the project has a shortfall — it's either under-allocated or relying on units that arrive too late.

What the app flags (in priority order)

• Past-due delivery — a delivery's planned date has passed and it has not been marked shipped. Most urgent. Once you record the batch's actual ship date, it no longer flags.
• Coverage conflict — units are allocated but don't arrive in time (or in enough quantity). Supply timing doesn't line up with demand timing.
• Unallocated — the project has deliveries scheduled but not enough inventory reserved.

These appear as row colors in the project tabs and as entries on the Alerts page. Alerts reports one issue per project (the earliest unmet delivery, with the shortfall) using the same logic that colors the rows, so the two always agree.

Where you see the results

• Alerts tab — every project with a problem, earliest issue first.
• Project row colors — status at a glance while scanning.
• Available Today figure and filter — owned inventory (Owned = Yes) that has arrived by today and is not yet allocated.
• Allocations Chart — a visual map of which items cover which projects; hover a line or project for engine manufacturer, model, and quantity; each item shows N of X units allocated.
• Dashboard charts — upcoming availability and deliveries over the next 24 months.

8. Access Levels — Who Can Do What

Every account has one of four access levels, set by an Admin in User Admin. Your own level is shown on the Settings page.

Admin

Full control. Everything Editors can do, plus: manage user accounts and access levels, edit the dropdown lists that feed every form, manage the AI Review rules, delete records (inventory, templates, any proposal), and review the feedback queue with comments back to submitters. Admins can also preview the app as any other level to see what that person sees.

Editor

The standard working level. Create and edit projects, inventory, delivery dates, allocations, and proposals; generate documents; and approve or deny allocations drafted by Editor Lite users (denials can carry a note back to the drafter).

Editor Lite

Same day-to-day abilities as Editor — create and edit projects, inventory, and proposals — with one difference: allocations they draft are marked pending and count against inventory immediately, but need an Editor or Admin approval to become final.

Viewer

Read-only. Browse every screen — projects, inventory, allocations chart, proposals — without the ability to change anything. Good for people who need visibility but not write access.

Everyone, at every level, can submit feedback (⚑ Report a Bug / Enhancement) and will see the Admin's response on their My Feedback list once it's reviewed.

9. The Proposal Builder — Quotes as Word Documents

The Proposal Builder (left nav → Proposal Builder) turns a project into a finished, client-ready Word proposal. It walks through seven steps; you can move Back/Next freely, and Save draft (in the nav bar) works from any step once a Client and Title are set. Drafts appear in the drafts bar and under Proposals, where they can be reopened, edited, or revised.

The seven steps

1. Project and Client

Pick the project (or start blank). Client, title, contact, and email prefill from the project. Importing a project also pulls its technical fields (voltage, phase, wire, tier, ambient, and more) into the engine step.

2. Engine

Choose Manufacturer → Engine model → Power node → Package/Enclosure. If a matching equipment template exists, its full Bill of Materials loads with every printed line shown exactly as it will appear. Dropdowns show the template default until you change them — picking "—" omits that value from the printed line entirely; re-pick a value to restore it. Makes without a template (e.g. Generac) build from your dropdown picks instead ("scratch mode"). The Spec summary compiles itself from tier, sound, tank, and UL data — edit it once and it stops auto-updating.

3. Additional Line Items

Add-ons priced per line (extended = qty × unit). Negative prices work as deductions. These sum with the engine into the proposal total.

4. Notes & Terms

Standard notes plus Payment Terms: percentage tranches that must total exactly 100%, each with a description and NET terms (shown as NET-15, NET-30…). Sub-lines (i., ii.) can carry delivery schedules and print indented under their tranche.

5. Exclusions

Tick standard exclusions and add custom ones. These print as the "Items Not Included" section.

6. Quote Details

The quote number auto-builds as initials + date + sequence (e.g. CB20260720-01-00) and the Quote description composes itself from qty, kW, manufacturer, and enclosure — like the spec summary, it stays editable and your wording wins. The cover date on the document follows the Quote date here.

7. Review and Generate

A full preview of everything that will print. From here: Save proposal, Export only (download the .docx without saving to the project), or Generate & save to project (document + record on the Proposals tab, and the project can be stamped as quoted).

AI Review Companion

On step 7, AI Review Companion sends the assembled proposal to Claude, which checks for contradictions (e.g. commissioning "included" in Notes but listed under Exclusions), likely omissions, and math/pricing errors (percentages that don't sum, extended-price mistakes). Findings appear in a modal ranked High / Medium / Minor — click any finding to jump straight to the step that fixes it. After closing, Show last review (N) reopens the same list without re-running, so you can work down the items one by one. The review is advisory: it never blocks generating, and it isn't a substitute for a final human read.

Two-way sync with the project

Importing a project fills the builder from project fields; after Save or Generate, the builder offers to write back any values you changed (shown as green new values / red changes, confirm before anything is written). Shared fields include voltage, phase, wire, alternator kVA, temp rise, ambient, tier, and enclosure type.

Revisions

On the Proposals tab, Edit reopens a draft in place; Revise creates the next revision (…-01) of a generated proposal with everything carried over. The generated Word document always reflects the exact preview — same descriptions, pricing table with a bold Total Amount in USD row, cover photo per manufacturer, and the quote date on the cover.

10. Quick Reference

I want to…	Go to…	Then…
Create a project	Open Projects → + New Project	Enter at least the Project Name, Save
Add delivery dates	Open the saved project → Delivery Schedule	Enter date + units, + Add
Add inventory supply dates	Inventory → open item → Availability Dates	Enter date + units, + Add
Reserve units for a project	Project → Inventory Allocations (or) Inventory → Project Allocations	Pick item/project + units, Allocate
Quickly fill a project	Project → Inventory Allocations	Pick an item, click ⚡ Auto-fill
See what's at risk	Alerts tab	Review earliest issue per project
See what's free right now	Inventory → Available Today filter	—
See the project ↔ inventory map	Allocations Chart (left nav)	Hover lines/nodes for detail
Build a proposal	Proposal Builder (left nav)	Pick project → step through 1–7 → Generate
Save a proposal mid-way	Proposal Builder, any step	Save draft (nav bar; needs Client + Title)
Check a proposal for errors	Proposal Builder → step 7	AI Review Companion; click a finding to jump to it
Revise a sent proposal	Proposals tab	Revise → new revision carries everything over