Reading a Projected Available Balance Row by Row in EDGEBIC

Reading a projected available balance calendar is like reading a bank statement for stock: each row is one time bucket, the opening balance carries down from the row above, receipts add, requirements subtract, and the result becomes the next row's opening. In EDGEBIC by User Solutions the calendar is one row per bucket (a day, a week, or a 28-day period) for one product, and once you can trace a single row into the next, the whole grid reads at a glance. This post walks the columns in order and traces a real product across four weeks.

For the arithmetic overview and the design behind the roll-forward, see projected available balance explained; this post is the hands-on read. Both sit under the EDGEBIC planning guide.

The columns, left to right

A projection row carries a fixed set of figures. Reading them in order tells the whole story of that bucket.

• Opening. On-hand carried into the bucket. Equals the previous row's projected available balance (PAB).
• Scheduled receipts. Open build-to-stock orders completing in this bucket. Supply arriving.
• Forecast demand. The forecast entered for this bucket. It participates only for make-to-stock products.
• Firm demand. Committed demand due in this bucket, from open make-to-order orders or confirmed sales order lines.
• Gross requirements. The effective demand after the forecast consumption rule combines forecast and firm.
• PAB. Opening plus scheduled receipts minus gross requirements. The headline number.
• Below safety. A flag that fires when PAB drops under the safety stock level.
• ATP discrete and cumulative. How much is still free to promise.
• Suggested. The replenishment quantity, if a trigger is crossed.

The single rule that ties rows together: this row's opening is the row above's PAB. Confirm that link and the calendar is a continuous ledger, not a set of snapshots.

Where the opening comes from on row one

The first row's opening is not zero and not the cache on the product grid. It is the sum of every ledger entry with an effective date before the window starts. That figure carries into row one, and from there each row's PAB feeds the next row's opening. Because the number is ledger-derived, it always agrees with what the inventory ledger records.

Gross requirements: forecast and firm combined

Gross requirements is where forecast and firm demand merge into one number. For a make-to-order product it is firm demand only, because forecast is irrelevant to custom jobs. For a make-to-stock product a per-product rule decides the combination:

Under greater-of, a forecast of 60 and a firm of 40 give gross requirements of 60: the firm order sits inside the forecast. Under minus-consumed, the same inputs still give 60, but if firm rises to 80 the result is 80, because minus-consumed adds firm on top of the leftover forecast.

A worked read: Widget A across four weeks

Take Widget A, make-to-stock, safety stock 50, greater-of consumption, opening balance 180, in weekly buckets. Forecasts and firm orders:

Now read row by row.

Week 1. Opening 180. No receipts. Gross requirements = max(60, 40) = 60. PAB = 180 + 0 − 60 = 120. Above safety (50), so no flag.

Week 2. Opening 120 (week 1's PAB). No receipts. Gross requirements = max(60, 70) = 70. PAB = 120 − 70 = 50. Exactly at safety; not yet below.

Week 3. Opening 50. No receipts. Gross requirements = max(60, 0) = 60. PAB = 50 − 60 = −10. Below safety: flagged. A suggestion fires here if a reorder trigger is set.

Week 4. Opening −10. Gross requirements = 60. PAB = −10 − 60 = −70. Deeper below safety.

Read straight down the opening and PAB columns and the story is plain: stock erodes from 180, dips to the safety line in week 2, and goes negative in week 3. The stockout is visible weeks before it lands. That early-warning behavior is the subject of how a stockout shows up before it happens.

Reading a scheduled receipt into the roll

Add one build-to-stock order for 200 completing in week 3. Now week 3 reads opening 50, receipts 200, gross requirements 60, PAB = 50 + 200 − 60 = 190. Week 4 opens at 190 and lands at 130. The receipt lifts every following row, and the negative rows disappear. This is exactly what happens after you firm a suggestion into a real order: the next projection shows the receipt in the roll. The make-to-stock replenishment walkthrough traces that firm-to-receipt handoff end to end.

History rows read differently

If you start the window in the past, the early rows are history buckets. A history row ignores the plan entirely and uses only realized ledger movement. So a history row might show opening 250, a realized net of −130 from issues, and a PAB of 120, with forecast and scheduled receipts both blank. This keeps the past immutable: the projection never rewrites what actually happened. The forward rows pick up from the last history row using the current plan.

Suggested is a preview, not a commitment

One reading habit saves confusion: the suggested column is display-only. A suggested quantity does not roll into later rows' opening. That is deliberate, so the calendar always shows the honest consequence of doing nothing. A chronically short product shows several suggestion rows in a row, even though firming the first would cover the rest. Nothing changes in the projection until you firm a suggestion into a real order and the next run reads it as a receipt.

Reading the calendar well comes down to three moves: confirm each opening matches the PAB above it, read gross requirements as forecast-and-firm combined by the product's rule, and treat negatives and suggestions as signals to act rather than errors to fix. Everything downstream, including safety stock decisions and the promise math, stands on rows that read cleanly.

See the calendar working against your own parts in the EDGEBIC platform overview, or contact US for a demo.