The multi-Location rebalancing playbook: How to move stock from where it’s sitting to where it’s selling

You can have too much stock and not enough stock at the same time. One warehouse is sitting on months of stock. Another has run out. So you place a new supplier order, tie up more cash, and wait six weeks for stock you already own.

Sound familiar? If you run more than one warehouse, branch, store, or DC, you’ve probably lived this. It’s one of the most common and most expensive blind spots in multi-location inventory planning.

The problem isn’t that people don’t care. It’s that spreadsheets can’t see across the network. Each location is planned independently, so excesses and shortages never meet.

This playbook shows you how to fix that. We’ll walk through how Netstock’s Excess Redistribution module identifies idle stock against shortages, how planners see only what needs attention, and how a transfer goes from recommendation straight to the ERP. Then we’ll run a real rebalancing scenario with the numbers.

Key takeaways

• Check your network before you buy. Many businesses order stock that already sits in another of their own locations. Rebalancing first cuts purchasing and frees up cash.
• Only release what a location can truly spare. Netstock releases inventory above safety stock, the replenishment cycle and a configurable buffer, so a transfer doesn’t trigger a new supplier order at the source.
• Only send what a location truly needs. Required SKUs is based on the ideal order or the forecast demand during a predicted stock-out, and short stock-outs that a transfer can’t fix in time are filtered out.
• Planners see signal, not noise. An item only shows up on a redistribution order when one location has stock to spare and another needs it. Potential savings help you start with the biggest wins.
• It’s proven in the real world. Race Winning Brands reallocated nearly €400,000 of excess across the US, Canada and Europe, and cut total excess by 30%.

How Netstock plans a multi-location network

Rethinking replenishment across three countries. IRONMAN 4×4 runs 11 distribution centers across Australia, Thailand and the US, supporting wholesale and 12 retail stores. With Netstock, it restructured its domestic replenishment model to improve flow across its six Australian DCs. Fill rate rose from 79% to 95%, stock-outs fell from 800 AUD to 220 AUD, and stock turns improved by 25%.

Step 1: Identify idle stock in one location and a shortage in another

Rebalancing starts with two simple questions. Where do we have more than we need? And where are we about to run short?

Netstock answers both, for every item at every location, using data pulled from your ERP. It looks at stock on hand, stock on order, forecast demand, lead times and your stocking policies. Then it works out two numbers.

How much a location can safely give away

For stocked items, a location can release any net stock above this line:

Safety stock + replenishment cycle + available stock buffer

The buffer stock is a setting in days. Think of it as breathing room. It stops Netstock from recommending a transfer that would force the source location to reorder from a supplier a week later.

For non-stocked and obsolete items, the rule is simpler. A location can release anything above its firm demand within the lead time. That means dead stock in one branch can still become a sale somewhere else.

How much does a location actually need?

Required stock at a destination is the larger of two numbers:

• The ideal order recommendation (before supplier minimums and multiples)
• Forecast demand during any predicted stockout within the lead time

There’s a smart check built in. The predicted stockout has to last at least as long as your minimum stock-out duration setting. If an item will be out for three days but a transfer takes seven, the stock would arrive too late to help. So Netstock doesn’t recommend it.

Matching the two

The recommended transfer is the lower of what the source can spare and what the destination needs. You decide which source locations to pull from first, usually the closest. Netstock works down your list in that order.

It also works both ways. You can pull stock into one location from many (Order from locations), or push excess from one location out to many (Distribute excess).

Step 2: Focus only on what needs attention

A network with 10 locations and 20,000 SKUs has millions of possible transfer routes. No planner can check them all. And they shouldn’t have to.

Furnmart, a furniture retail group with 170 stores across South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, runs its entire network with an eight-person planning team. Each store needs a different product mix, so manual planning simply doesn’t scale. Netstock’s automation and visibility across stores and regions make it possible.

Netstock is built on management by exception. It cuts the noise in four ways.

1. Items only appear when there’s a real match. An item lands on a redistribution order only if one location has stock to spare and another location needs it. Send excess from one DC to three branches, and only the branches that need the item will show. Everything else stays off the screen.
2. Potential savings show you where to start. Every order shows a potential saving: the value of the stock being moved. In most cases, that’s purchasing spend you won’t need. Start with the biggest numbers first.
3. Classifications tell you what matters most. Netstock ranks items by value (A, B, C) and by unit movement (High, Medium, Low). A stockout on an A-High item hurts far more than one on a C-Low item. That context helps planners decide which transfers to action first.
4. Late transfers never make the list. The minimum stockout duration setting filters out shortages that a transfer can’t fix in time. So every recommendation you see is one that can actually make a difference.

When you open an order, the layout is colour-coded so you can read it fast. Product details, the destination’s stock position, each source’s stock position and the transfer quantity each sit in their own band.

Step 3: Turn a recommendation into a transfer

Here’s the full workflow, from fresh data to stock on the move. The golden rule: rebalance first, then buy whatever’s still needed.

1. Refresh your data. Netstock pulls stock levels, open orders and sales history from your ERP.
2. Build the redistribution order. Choose the location that needs stock (or the one with excess to share). Add your source or destination locations and rank them from most to least preferred. Confirm the transfer lead time for each pair.
3. Review and amend. Check each recommended transfer and tweak quantities if you need to. You stay in full control.
4. Commit the order. Committing updates what’s available and what’s required at every location. That way, the next order you build can’t promise the same stock twice. Then build the next order, if you need one.
5. Create the transfers in your ERP. With a two-way integration, you can download the orders straight from Netstock. Otherwise, key them into your ERP.
6. Refresh again. Your ERP now knows about the transfers, and so does Netstock.
7. Order the rest. Raise DC distribution orders and supplier orders only for what rebalancing couldn’t cover.

Two settings make the transfers practical, not just possible. Redistribution minimum order quantities and order multiples can be applied from the source location. So you won’t be asked to ship a single unit across the country.

Step 4: See it in action, a rebalancing scenario end to end

Let’s make this real. Here’s one fast-moving, high-value item (A-High) in a two-location network. The numbers are illustrative, but they follow the same logic Netstock uses.

The setup

• Item: costs $20 per unit and sells for $35, a margin of $15 per unit.
• Central DC: 1,500 units on hand, nothing on order, selling 10 a day. Demand in its region has cooled.
• West branch: 50 units on hand, nothing on order, selling 15 a day. A busy season has started early.
• Supplier lead time: 45 days.
• Transfer lead time between the two sites: 2 days.

What Netstock works out

What Central DC can spare. Central DC keeps three things:

• 200 units of safety stock
• its 300-unit replenishment cycle
• a 14-day buffer, which is 140 units at 10 a day

That’s 640 units held back. The other 860 units are available to share.

What West branch needs. West branch has 50 units and sells 15 a day, so it runs out in just over 3 days. Its next supplier delivery can’t land until day 45. That leaves about 42 days with no stock, and 625 units of forecast demand at risk (45 days × 15 a day, minus the 50 on hand). The stock-out is far longer than the minimum stock-out duration (say, 10 days), so the transfer qualifies.

The recommendation. Netstock recommends the lower of the two numbers: 625 units. Potential saving: 625 × $20 = $12,500, the value of stock you won’t need to buy to cover this gap.

The source check. Central DC is left with 875 units, still above its 640-unit line. No surprise supplier order gets triggered there.

The timing. The transfer is raised today and arrives on day 2, before West branch runs out. West still places its normal supplier order for demand after day 45. Rebalancing covers the gap until that order lands.

Before and after

	Without rebalancing	With Excess Redistribution
How West branch gets stock	Waits for the next supplier delivery (day 45)	Transfer from Central DC (arrives day 2)
Days out of stock at West branch	~42	0
Sales lost at West branch	625 units ($21,875 revenue, $9,375 margin)	None
Idle stock at Central DC	860 units ($17,200)	235 units ($4,700)
Cost to fix	—	Freight, say ~$900

One transfer protects $9,375 of margin for roughly $900 in freight. It also puts $12,500 of idle stock back to work, and no new purchase order is needed to do it.

Now picture that across every item and every location in your network. That’s where the real money is.

Proof from the field: Race Winning Brands

Race Winning Brands (RWB) makes high-performance parts for the automotive and powersports markets. It manages around 75,000 SKUs across a network that spans the US, Canada and Europe.

Before Netstock, planning ran on Excel spreadsheets. Monthly updates took the team two to three days, and spotting excess across locations was slow and manual.

With Netstock’s Excess Redistribution, the team reallocated nearly €400,000 of excess inventory across its network. Those moves led to immediate sales. One transfer alone, about €50,000 of stock from Canada to the US, gave sales a significant boost.

The bigger picture is just as striking. RWB cut total inventory from €11.5 million to €8 million, and reduced excess by 30%. That’s €3.5 million of excess stock no longer tying up cash.

There’s a practical lesson here too. RWB chose to focus on larger transfers and was cautious with small quantities, where freight and handling can outweigh the benefit. That’s exactly what potential savings and redistribution minimums are for.

Rebalance inventory before you reorder

Your network probably already holds stock that one of your locations is about to buy. Excess Redistribution helps you find it, move it and only buy what’s left.
See how it works or request a demo.