Work out what to reorder this week from what actually moves
Every Monday Claude reads your stock and usage and works out, part by part, what will run out before a new order could arrive. It suggests what to order and how much, and the lines you approve go to your To order sheet for the purchase order drafts.
FullPurchasingEvery week
Set it up6 steps
Open the Claude desktop app and sign in with the Claude account you use for work. On a personal Free, Pro or Max plan, chats can be used for training unless you switch off SettingsPrivacyHelp improve Claude.
No account yet? Ask your manager.
Where things are in Claude
- CustomizeConnectors In Claude's left sidebar: connect your email and files.
- /schedule Type it in a new Cowork task to run a prompt on a schedule.
- Scheduled In Claude's left sidebar: what runs, to pause or change it.
- Nothing to export: on the first run Claude makes a "Stock and usage" sheet in your Purchasing folder with the columns it needs. Fill it once from your stock cards, then update stock and usage every Monday.
- Write a short "Reorder rules" note in your Purchasing folder: how many weeks of safety stock you want, how many weeks one order should cover, the parts you never reorder without asking (being phased out, made to order) and anything seasonal.
- Connect Google Drive under CustomizeConnectors. Keep this workflow's files in one Drive folder called Purchasing.
- Type /schedule, paste this workflow's prompt and pick Weekly, Monday at 8:00.
- Write yes in the Order column beside the lines you approve, then ask Claude to copy them to your To order sheet (keep it in your Purchasing folder too). The purchase order workflow drafts the supplier emails from there.
- It runs while your computer is on and Claude is open. A Monday it was off is skipped, not queued.
Set this up on your computer: the Claude desktop app runs it.
The prompt
- Every Monday at 8:00, read the "Stock and usage" sheet in my Purchasing folder (if it does not exist yet, create it with the columns this needs, ask me to fill it, and stop there) and the "Reorder rules" note in my Purchasing folder.
- 1. For each part, work out the weekly usage from the last 6 months, and how many weeks the stock on hand will last, counting an open order only if it arrives before the stock runs out.
- 2. A part needs ordering when it will last less than its lead time plus the safety weeks in my rules. Suggest a quantity that covers the lead time, the safety weeks and the weeks one order should cover, rounded up to the minimum order or pack size, with its supplier and the order value. Where the rules give no number of weeks, use 2 safety weeks and 4 weeks per order, and say so.
- 3. Mark "too late" every part that will run out before a new order could arrive, with the date it runs out: those need a call to the supplier today, not an order.
- 4. Mark "check first" where this month's usage is more than twice the 6-month average, or has dropped to nothing: one big order, or a new normal? Suggest no quantity for parts the rules say never to reorder without asking.
- 5. Where the lead time, the minimum order or the usage is missing, write [CHECK: what is missing] instead of a quantity.
- 6. Separately, list the parts with stock but no usage in 6 months, with their stock value, the biggest first.
- Save it as a new sheet named "Reorder" with today's date in my Purchasing folder, with an empty Order column for me: too late first, then the parts to order by value, then check first. Under it, give the total value of the suggested orders. Add nothing to my To order sheet until I have marked lines yes and asked you.
If your company keeps prices out of AISafe version
Reads a stock export without unit costs or values. Parts are ranked by how soon they run out, and no price, value or total appears anywhere.
What you get
A Monday reorder sheet: the parts to order now with a quantity each, the ones that will run out before an order can arrive, and the stock that has stopped moving.
Get this workflow for your team
Two minutes each: everyone gets a plan of ready workflows like this one, inside your company's rules.
Your manager sees progress and hours. Never what Claude reads or writes.
FirstPrompt's workflow library adapts parts of Anthropic's knowledge-work-plugins (Apache-2.0), rewritten by FirstPrompt. Source and licence