OTB without the spreadsheet
Most buyers manage open-to-buy in a spreadsheet, and most spreadsheets are a season behind reality. The numbers update when someone manually transcribes them, which means the OTB that matters, the OTB at the moment you click submit on a PO, is almost never the OTB you’re looking at. Vendee Pro fixes this by computing OTB live from the same data that drives your POs.
Set a budget for a category, a vendor, or a store, scoped to a season. As POs are drafted, submitted, and received, the OTB ledger moves in step. Your remaining OTB is always the truth, because the system reads from the same source as the PO module.
Budgets that match how you plan
OTB budgets in Vendee Pro are set per month along three dimensions you can combine:
- By category. Tops vs bottoms vs accessories. The most common cut.
- By location. When different stores or locations carry different mixes.
- By month. Budgets live at month granularity; the planner shows the current month plus the next 11.
- Combined. Apparel at the flagship for October. Specific budgets for the specific bucket.
The OTB numbers you actually need
For any budget cell, Vendee Pro shows:
- Budget. What you’ve allocated for the month.
- On-order cost. Total landed cost of active POs (draft, submitted, partially received) arriving in that month.
- On-order retail. Retail-dollar value of the same POs, for the IMU view.
- Units. Total units committed in that month.
- Remaining. Budget minus on-order cost. The dollars left to commit.
Click any cell to drill into the specific POs, products, and vendors that compose it. The remaining number is the one you watch when you’re deciding whether the next buy fits the month.
Mid-period adjustments
Budgets are not laws. Mid-period you reallocate, and Vendee Pro accommodates that. Add to a budget when a category is running away. Reduce one when sell-through under-performs. The OTB Budget Performance report compares budget vs on-order vs received across months so you can review after the fact and plan the next period.
OTB and the AI assistant
The Vendee Pro AI assistant exposes an otb_status tool that reads allocated vs spent vs remaining per category per month. Ask it where you stand on apparel for October, and it returns the numbers. When you ask it to propose a PO, it can account for what a given month already has on order. Proposals are still confirm-before-write, so nothing lands in your OTB without your approval.
Reports built around OTB
The reports library includes an OTB Budget Performance report that compares budget vs on-order vs actual across months and categories. Use it to identify chronically under- or over-budgeted categories and inform next year’s plan. More on reports →
Frequently asked questions
Can I run OTB by category and by location at the same time?
Yes. You can have multiple OTB budgets active for the same month at different cuts (category-only, location-only, or both). Each PO line contributes to whichever budgets its product category and destination location match.
How are cancelled PO lines handled?
Cancelling a PO or PO line removes it from active status, so the on-order figure drops and remaining OTB frees up the same minute.
Does OTB include freight?
PO lines carry wholesale price plus shipping-cost-per-unit. The on-order cost in the OTB table reflects the landed figure, so budgets are compared against real unit cost rather than wholesale-only.
What if I don’t want OTB tracking yet?
OTB is optional. You can run Vendee Pro without budgets, and turn them on whenever you’re ready. Existing POs will be incorporated into any budgets you create.
See your real OTB, in real time.
Sign up free to explore. Upgrade to Professional to set up your first budget and watch it move in real time.
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