Why a Replenishment Suggestion Does Not Lift Projected Balance Until You Firm It

In EDGEBIC by User Solutions a replenishment suggestion is advice, not supply, so it does not roll into the projected available balance of later buckets; the balance rises only after you firm the suggestion into a real order and that order shows up as a scheduled receipt on the next projection. This is deliberate. The plan shows you what would be needed and leaves the commitment to you, which is why you can see several buckets in a row each carrying a suggestion against a balance that never climbed.

Understanding this one behavior saves a lot of confusion at the inventory calendar. This post explains why the suggestion stays out of the balance, why the shortfalls repeat, and what firming actually changes. For the balance itself, read reading a projected available balance row by row, and for the wider loop start from the EDGEBIC planning guide.

A Suggestion Is a Proposal, Not a Commitment

When the projected balance falls to a part's reorder trigger in a bucket, EDGEBIC generates a replenishment suggestion: a quantity, sized and timed to bring stock back above the buffer. That number appears on the row. Nothing has been ordered.

Because it is only a proposal, EDGEBIC does not treat it as incoming supply. The suggestion is displayed on its bucket and pointedly kept out of the roll-forward math that carries the balance from one bucket to the next. The projected balance walks forward using real demand and real incoming supply only. A suggested quantity you have not acted on is neither, so it changes nothing downstream.

This is a design choice, and it is the safe one. If a suggestion silently lifted the balance, the plan would show you a rosy future that depends on an order you never placed. Keeping the suggestion out of the balance means the calendar never lies to you about what is actually coming.

Why the Same Part Shows Suggestion After Suggestion

The direct consequence is that a part with a chronic shortfall shows a suggestion on every bucket that stays below the trigger, not just the first one.

Each bucket is evaluated against the balance carried forward from the bucket before it. Since no suggestion has been firmed, that balance keeps falling, so bucket after bucket dips below the trigger and each fires its own suggestion. Logically the first suggestion, if placed, would refill stock and clear the later ones. But EDGEBIC does not assume you will act, so it shows you the raw picture: here is every bucket that breaches the line, given that nothing has been ordered yet.

The practical read is simple. Do not treat consecutive suggestions as a stack of orders to place. Treat them as a single shortfall shown repeatedly. Firm the earliest one and re-read the plan.

A Worked Example: One Suggestion Covers Three Weeks

Take a make-to-stock bracket. On-hand is 250, forecast demand is 120 a week, the reorder point is 100, and the standard order quantity is 200.

Walk the balance down with no incoming supply:

Weeks 2, 3, and 4 all carry a suggestion, because the balance never recovered. The instinct is to place three orders. Instead, firm the week 2 suggestion, sized to lift the balance back above the trigger, and re-run the projection.

Now the firmed order appears as a scheduled receipt in its completion week. If it lands in week 2 at, say, 290 units, the balance climbs to roughly 300 in week 2, then walks down 120 a week: about 180 in week 3, 60 in week 4. Week 3 clears because it is above the trigger; week 4 may still need a smaller top-up. One firmed order did most of the work, and the plan told you the truth at every step.

What Firming Changes

Firming a suggestion creates a real build-to-stock order dated at the bucket you firmed from. That is the moment a proposal becomes something the plan will count. On the next projection, the order appears as a scheduled receipt in its completion bucket, and the balance netting adds it from that bucket forward. The row that was below the trigger now sits at or above it, so its suggestion disappears, and later buckets the incoming supply covers clear too.

If a firmed order does not lift the balance, the cause is almost always one of three things: the order is still unscheduled, its completion date lands outside the buckets you were watching, or it falls beyond the planning horizon entirely. Confirm the order is scheduled and its completion bucket sits inside the horizon, and the later buckets lift. Walk the whole conversion in how to firm a replenishment suggestion into an order.

The Habit This Builds

Once you know a suggestion is advice, the calendar becomes easier to work. You read the earliest breach, firm one order to cover it, re-run, and let the later suggestions clear themselves. You never treat a column of suggestions as a stack of separate orders, and you never trust a balance that a suggestion has secretly propped up, because EDGEBIC never props it up.

That discipline is the difference between a plan you can commit to and a plan you have to second-guess. For how a shortfall becomes a suggestion in the first place, read how a forecast becomes a replenishment suggestion, and to see the same drivers behind a real purchase decision, read how projected balance drives a purchase decision.