Netstock reporting is built for everyone who relies on inventory data, not only the people who plan it.Planners, buyers, finance and executives each get their own view of the same data in Netstock, from ready-made dashboards to custom reports planners build themselves.
Netstock’s dashboards are built around a standard set of inventory planning KPIs and are ready from the first day of data import. When a stakeholder needs a different cut of the data, planners filter and download standard reports, or build their own reports in Report Builder.
The standard dashboards are deliberate. They encode what good inventory performance looks like for small to medium-sized businesses, so teams don’t start from a blank canvas. Flexibility sits in the reporting layer, where each stakeholder gets the view they need.
This article covers what each stakeholder sees, what you can configure, where the limits are, how AI Opportunities sets the priority list, and a monthly review agenda you can reuse. For a full feature tour, see Netstock reporting and dashboards: Built for stakeholder visibility.
Key takeaways
- One dashboard. Planners, buyers, finance and executives each get a ready-made view of the same daily inventory data, organized according to the priorities of their respective roles.
- Standard dashboards, flexible reports. Dashboards use proven inventory planning KPIs. Standard reports, Report Builder and advanced reports cover every other view.
- Limits, stated plainly. Report Builder doesn’t support custom fields or formulas, and it schedules reports daily. Advanced reports, built by Netstock’s team, cover the rest.
- One shared action list. AI Opportunities tells every stakeholder what to act on first.
- A reusable monthly review. Six agenda items, each mapped to a Netstock view.
1. Why one default dashboard rarely fits every stakeholder
Each stakeholder asks a different question of the same inventory data. A planner asks what needs attention today. A buyer asks which orders to chase or cut. Finance asks how much cash is tied up in stock and where that’s heading. An executive asks whether performance is improving.
General-purpose BI tools answer this by building a separate dashboard for each role from a blank canvas. That takes analyst time, and someone has to know which KPIs matter. Netstock starts from the same daily data and gives each role a view built around its own question.
At Starkey, a US hearing technology company, the materials team opened Netstock up to stakeholders outside planning. They needed minimal training, and the team stopped preparing and circulating spreadsheets.
“We gave read-only access to several key stakeholders.” Director of Global Materials & Inventory, Starkey
2. What each stakeholder sees in Netstock
| Role | Where they start | Question it answers | Decision it supports |
| Planner | Netstock Dashboard, AI Opportunities, Item Analyzer | What needs attention today, and why? | Which stock-outs, potential stock-outs and surplus orders to act on first |
| Buyer | AI Opportunities; a Report Builder report filtered by supplier; AI Inventory Email Agents | Which orders need to be expedited, reduced, delayed, or canceled? | Which purchase orders to change, and what to tell suppliers |
| Finance | Stock Projection; the Dashboard’s Stock Holding and Stock Turns panels | How much is tied up in stock and excess, and where is inventory value heading over the next 12 months? | Working capital targets, budgets and capital planning |
| Executive or owner | Executive Dashboard, Dashboard Analyzer summaries, classification matrix | Is inventory performance improving across the business? | Where to focus capital, and what to report to owners or investors |
Planners start on the Netstock Dashboard. Each KPI panel lists the five items contributing most to it, so planners work from a short list of exceptions instead of thousands of SKUs. The Item Analyzer explains how any item reached its current status and suggests short-term remedies.
Buyers work from AI Opportunities, which flags surplus orders to cancel, reduce or delay, and potential stock-outs to expedite. A Report Builder report filtered by supplier, set to generate daily, gives each buyer their own list. Inventory Email Agents, part of the AI Pack, then draft the emails to suppliers to cancel, query or expedite orders.
Finance uses Stock Projection to see projected stock value, fill rate, stock turns, cover days and recommended orders over the next 12 months. Values are calculated at average cost for a like-for-like comparison, and the data downloads to CSV by month. The Dashboard’s Stock Holding panel compares the actual stock value with the model stock value, the value if every item were perfectly balanced. Netstock customer Warwick Hanger, a US manufacturer and distributor, expanded into four new territories without increasing its inventory holdings, and lifted its order fill rate from around 50% to close to 90%.
Executives and owners get a multi-location view of inventory, sales and order performance in the Executive Dashboard, available to Client Administrators. The Dashboard Analyzer turns its charts into a written summary with strategic recommendations. At Eustralis, Supply Chain Manager Etienne Decuyper says the Executive Dashboard “has been beneficial to our top management and C-level executives,” who see every location at once without the line-item detail. The business cut inventory by 35% while keeping a 97% fill rate. Race Winning Brands used Netstock’s executive reporting to manage investor expectations after a private equity acquisition.
Sales leaders can use the Dashboard’s Fill Rate panel, which lists the five items that are most damaging to fill rate, to see which stock-outs are costing the most in customer service.
3. What you can configure, and where the limits are
| Area | What you can do | Limits, and the workaround |
| Netstock Dashboard | Drill into any KPI panel for the full standard report; filter, sort and download any table view to CSV | Built around a standard set of KPI panels. For a different view, use Report Builder |
| Executive Dashboard | A multi-location view across five tabs: Summary, Inventory, Sales, Recommended Orders and Orders | Available to Client Administrators |
| Report Builder | Choose a base report, filters (location, classification, supplier), columns, sort order and a row limit; keep a report private, or share it so colleagues can view and edit it | No custom fields or formulas. Netstock’s team builds those as advanced reports |
| Scheduling | Set a report to generate daily with fresh data, or save it as a once-off report and rerun it on demand | Daily is the only automatic schedule. For a weekly or monthly view, rerun the saved report |
| Stock Projection | Project inventory value, fill rate, stock turns and orders 12 months ahead; save filters; download by month to CSV, including the filters used | Accuracy depends on realistic forecasts, clean data and correct lead times |
| Advanced reports | Netstock’s technical team builds reports with custom calculations or combined data sets; they appear on the Advanced Reports screen | Billable. You approve a cost estimate before work starts |
To build a custom report, open Report Builder and click Add report. Pick a base report, add filters and columns, set the sort order, preview it, then run and download it.
See the Report Builder in action
Not sure which report answers your question?
Netstock’s AI Pack gives a clear overview of each report’s purpose and how to use it to analyze inventory performance. New team members and occasional users, such as finance and executives, find the right report without asking a planner.
See the AI Report Explainer in action
4. AI Opportunities: the priority list every stakeholder shares
Dashboards show where performance is lagging. AI Opportunities tells you what to do about it first. Every day, Netstock AI™ analyzes inventory across all locations and flags opportunities in four areas: potential stock-outs, actual stock-outs, surplus orders and excess stock.
Each opportunity comes with a suggested action, such as expediting an order, redistributing excess between locations, or reducing a surplus order. AI Opportunities is available to all customers and learns from user feedback over time. Netstock AI has made 1.4 million recommendations, and over 75% of customers have unlocked $50,000 or more from AI opportunities.
During a stakeholder review, the AI Opportunities list serves as the action log. Planners own the items, and executives see each one tied to a financial outcome.
Read more about AI Opportunities.
5. A sample monthly inventory review pack
This 30-minute agenda uses only Netstock reports and dashboards, and the Dashboard Analyzer summary goes out as a pre-read, so the meeting is spent on decisions, not on walking through numbers.
| # | Agenda item | Time | Netstock source | Owner | Output |
| 1 | Headline performance (pre-read confirmed) | 3 min | Executive Dashboard Summary tab; Dashboard Analyzer summary | Planning manager | Agreed one-paragraph status |
| 2 | Customer service | 5 min | Fill Rate panel and its Top 5 items; lost sales | Planning manager, sales leader | Top service risks and owners |
| 3 | Working capital | 5 min | Stock Holding, Excess Stock and Stock Turns panels; classification matrix | Finance | Excess reduction targets by class |
| 4 | Supply | 5 min | AI Opportunities (surplus orders, potential stock-outs); supplier-filtered Report Builder report | Buyer | Orders to change and supplier follow-ups |
| 5 | Outlook | 5 min | Stock Projection, next 12 months | Finance, planning manager | Projected inventory value and fill rate against budget |
| 6 | Actions | 7 min | AI Opportunities, highest-value items | Planning manager | Named owners and due dates |
Before the meeting: set the Report Builder reports each stakeholder needs to generate daily, and circulate the Dashboard Analyzer summary two days ahead as a pre-read.
What good looks like: inventory value falls while fill rate rises or holds, and stock turns end the period higher than they started.
Turn reporting into a decision meeting
Netstock gives each stakeholder a view built around their own question, a clear route to custom reports when they need more, and one shared list of what to act on first. On average, Netstock customers reduce inventory holding by 25% and improve fill rate by 15%.
