Inventory Visibility: The Number to Quote Before You Promise Stock

Inventory visibility is knowing, for every item in every warehouse, how much is on hand, how much of that is committed, what is incoming and when, and which confirmed orders have not yet reserved stock. The number to quote is available to promise (ATP): the lowest projected free stock from today to the end of the planning horizon.

We use these terms throughout:

• On hand: units physically in the warehouse.
• Committed: units reserved against orders that have not shipped. They stay on the shelf but cannot be sold again. In Microsoft's documentation, a soft reservation leaves physical inventory unchanged but deducts from the quantity available for reservation.
• Free stock: on hand minus committed.
• Incoming: units due from purchase orders or production, with a date.
• Unreserved orders: confirmed customer orders with future delivery dates that have not yet reserved stock.
• Projected free stock on a given day: on hand − committed − unreserved orders due by that day + incoming due by that day.
• Available to promise (ATP): the lowest projected free stock from today to the end of the planning horizon.

For the wider split between tracking and control, see inventory control vs inventory management.

Total on hand overstates what you can promise for three reasons. Committed units are still on the shelf. Free stock may sit in the wrong warehouse for the customer. A count taken today cannot see orders and deliveries due next week.

Microsoft's Inventory Visibility documentation treats physical stock and promisable stock as separate measures.

The delivery date changes available to promise because a future order or a late delivery can lower free stock on a later day. The figure you can safely promise is therefore the lowest projected free stock from today to the end of the planning horizon, not today's balance.

Microsoft defines ATP as "the minimum projected on-hand quantity that's available from the specified date through the end of the schedule period" (Microsoft Learn, ATP). Microsoft's worked example (1 February 2022 start, 7-day schedule period):

• On hand is 20 on 1 February.
• A demand of 3 is scheduled that day, 10 units are due on 3 February, and a demand of 15 is due on 4 February.
• Projected stock runs 17, 17, 27, 12. Later supplies of 1 unit on 5 February and 3 units on 6 February lift it to 13 and 16, so they do not change the minimum of 12. ATP on 1 February is 12, not 17 or 27.
• If the 10 units never arrive, projected stock on 4 February falls to 2, and so does ATP.

Microsoft documents the lowest-point-in-the-horizon rule for its Inventory Visibility add-in, where the schedule period defaults to 30 days and can be set up to 180. We recommend it as our method for any item with confirmed future orders.

To work out ATP across two warehouses, calculate free stock per warehouse, apply each dated order and delivery, and take the lowest projected figure over your horizon. The figures below are illustrative and the model is ours, with a 14-day horizon.

Two dated events follow. An unreserved order of 20 units ships from Pune on day 8. A purchase order of 50 units lands in Pune on day 12.

ATP is the lowest figure in each column: Pune 10, Bengaluru 5, total 15. Quoting 35 breaks the day-8 order by 20 units.

Now a Bengaluru customer asks for 25 units in five days. Bengaluru has 5 free. Pune can spare at most 10 without breaking its own order. So you can promise 15, subject to transfer time, and the other 10 after the day-12 delivery. A combined total of 65 on hand would have hidden every one of these limits.

You test it with four checks, each with a clear pass or fail. Run them on real items this week, in your current system or in a spreadsheet. Use this sheet for each item in each warehouse:

Can a salesperson see free stock per warehouse on the quote or order line?

Pass: the line shows free stock for each warehouse, with no call to operations. Fail: it shows only a combined total, or you need a separate stock report.

Does the screen separate committed stock from on hand?

Pick an item with open sales orders. Pass: committed equals the sum of the reserved quantities on those orders, and free stock equals on hand minus committed. Fail: free stock equals on hand while orders are open.

Are unreserved orders and incoming deliveries visible with dates?

Pick an item with a confirmed order due next week and a purchase order due in 12 days. Pass: you can read both with dates and work out projected free stock by day. Fail: you see only today's figure, or orders appear only days before shipping.

Does the screen match the shelf?

Count 10 items per warehouse, mixing fast and slow movers, and compare with on hand. Pass: all match. Any difference is a fail to trace before the next count. Ten items is a smoke test, not a measure of your accuracy rate. For the causes of mismatches, see why system stock differs from the shelf, and for a routine count schedule, cycle counting.

Our rule of thumb: two or more fails mean your system is not showing visibility, so quote from the sheet above until it is fixed.

Arka Inventory helps sales teams know what they can confidently promise, not just what is physically on hand. It is built natively on Salesforce, so reps read visibility across warehouses, committed and reserved inventory, incoming stock, lead times and material availability where they quote.

• Inventory Visibility shows stock across locations, inventory on order, lead time insights and a raw material overview. See the Inventory Visibility feature.
• Commit Inventory lets you reserve and commit inventory against orders, and allocate or reallocate it based on delivery date, to prevent overselling.
• Inventory Alerts notify teams of low stock and of back-ordered items arriving.
• Custom reports and dashboards let you build reports and dashboards of inventory performance and operational metrics.

As of November 2026, our Basic plan is $199 a month paid yearly, with one user licence and extra users at $42 a month. It includes multiple warehouses, purchase orders and transfers, barcoding and packing slips, and inventory alerts. Our Advance plan is $499 a month paid yearly, with two user licences and extra users at $52 a month, and adds bills of materials, production and kitting. Sales orders are on our Enterprise plan, priced to your needs. Full plan details are on our pricing page. To confirm what you would pay in India, including tax, ask us.

You can run the four checks on your own data in our 15-day free trial, which has full access and needs no credit card. Typical onboarding takes at least two weeks, depending on data readiness and integrations. For you, that means bringing your inventory, product and warehouse data. If Salesforce is the platform you quote in, see also Salesforce inventory management routes and their costs.

Book a demo through our contact sales page and we will walk through your warehouses.