August 1, 2024
Brian Hogate Kristin McLaughlin

Crisp data calendar: Reports to check daily, weekly, and monthly for supplier success

Transform your supplier operations with a structured approach to data analysis using this essential reporting calendar.

Harnessing the power of data can lead to extraordinary results, like saving $500K in out-of-stocks (OOS), or growing distribution 55% with the world’s largest retailer. But with the sheer volume of data available, knowing what to focus on and when can be overwhelming.

That’s where this Crisp data calendar comes in. We’ve curated a list of essential reports to review daily, weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly, giving you a roadmap to leverage your data for supplier success.

Whether it’s tracking store-level inventory, monitoring digital sales, or analyzing supply chain health, Crisp’s intuitive platform and seamless BI and cloud integrations make it easy to access the insights your teams need, when they need them.

Following this data calendar, you’ll learn to optimize your omnichannel retail business, uncover new growth opportunities, and build stronger retailer relationships. It’s time to make data-driven decisions a part of your daily routine.

Tip: Remember to bookmark reports for easy access in the Crisp platform.



1. Daily

Inventory

With your products spread across the country, it’s easy to lose track of what’s where. Crisp’s daily inventory reports provide the clarity you need to manage your valuable stock effectively.

  • Store inventory: Available for top retailers through Crisp, store inventory reports offer a heat map view of live product stock—down to the SKU level—across individual store locations. This snapshot allows supply chain teams to make informed decisions about stock movements, ensuring that the right products are in the right places at the right time.
  • 📦 Distribution center (DC) inventory:  For distributors like KeHE and UNFI, Crisp’s daily DC inventory reports help suppliers monitor stock levels and inform product planning and ordering. These efforts ensure DCs are adequately stocked with their top-ordered SKUs, reducing store out-of-stocks and maximizing sales potential.

Digital pulse

Move at the speed of omnichannel with daily digital insights.

  • D2C sales: D2C channels like Amazon and Shopify are usually checked daily to keep orders flowing smoothly. Daily sales data from your D2C channels can inform inventory allocation for warehouse fulfillment or dropshipping, and reveal consumer demographic insights to inform brand and business strategies.
  • 📱Publication insights: The publication insights report in Crisp Retail Analytics provides daily online performance metrics for your top retail partner, including PEAT reporting (are your products published, eligible to be sold online, available, and transactable?), a breakdown of ‘untransactable’ points of distribution (PODs), and a summary of potential lost sales dollars. This report refreshes daily, facilitating fast problem-solving and ensuring your online presence is optimized for maximum visibility and sales.

Ad-hoc problem solving

Beyond these daily snapshots, Crisp is a go-to resource for ad-hoc problem-solving.  Have a specific question or concern? Dive into the data to uncover insights and develop solutions. Crisp empowers you to drill down by retailer, region, product, time period, and more.

Daily monitoring of inventory levels and online sales performance provides the real-time insights needed to keep your supply chain agile and your evolving digital presence optimized.


2. Weekly

Monday

Start your week by reviewing the previous week’s performance. This is your chance to assess what worked, what didn’t, and where you can improve.

  • Sales reporting: Examine your sales reports to uncover trends across retail accounts. Pinpoint your strongest markets and products and identify areas with growth potential.
  • 📈 Velocity: Track how quickly your products are moving off the shelves (units per store per week). This metric is crucial for both demand planners, who can use it to optimize inventory allocation efforts, and commercial teams, who can grasp how markets perform, and leverage strong performance data to unlock growth opportunities.
  • Performance insights: Crisp Retail Analytics’ performance insights report shows sales by channel (in-store vs. digital), region, or individual store; in-stock replenishment rates; and YOY sales trends – all in one convenient dashboard.

Midweek

Use the middle of the week to keep operations running smoothly and address potential issues.

  • 🛑 Voids reporting: Different from OOS reporting, Crisp’s voids reports, powered by machine learning (ML), highlight where products should be selling but aren’t. These allow you to identify potential lost revenue due to misplaced products, mis-scannings, or other issues and take corrective action.
  • At-risk inventory: Track down where you have stock nearing expiration, or utilize the spoilage risk dashboard in UNFI Insights. This report breaks down your stock by product and distribution center, revealing weeks of supply on hand and correlating it with weeks to expiration. Proactively address at-risk inventory to minimize waste and maximize profits.

Friday

Happy Friday! End the week by evaluating DC to store shipments, and identifying actions to take the following week.

  • Distribution (UNFI Insights): Compare distributor shipments with store shipments to understand the flow of your products through the UNFI network. This report helps you monitor overall UNFI account business health, spot potential DC inventory bottlenecks, and prioritize which serviced retailers to focus on.

Weekly data reviews provide a crucial rhythm for CPG businesses, allowing for timely performance assessments, operational adjustments, and strategic planning to optimize sales, inventory management, and efficiency.


3. Bi-weekly (twice a month)

Be sure to evaluate your progress before the end of the month. Dive deeper into your data twice a month to uncover emerging trends and fine-tune your strategies.

Go-to-market (GTM) performance

Launching a new product? Monitor its performance closely with bi-weekly check-ins. Track inventory flow and sales trends to assess how the new item is resonating with consumers and make data-backed adjustments to your marketing and distribution strategies.

Promotions

  • Promotional effectiveness: Evaluate the effectiveness of your promotions and trade spend by correlating sales and velocity data with promotional periods. This bi-weekly analysis helps you quickly identify which promotions drive sales and adjust your strategies for maximum impact. To take your trade marketing to the next level, leverage Crisp data in Promomash.
  • 📊 Marketing attribution: A flow of store and SKU-level data insights helps marketers close the loop on marketing attribution of digital campaigns to in-store sales. (Read: how poppi tied TikTok campaigns to an 80% in-store sales lift

Clearance & markdowns

Regularly tracking markdowns lets you identify patterns or issues contributing to excess inventory or slow sales. Reevaluating product assortments, pricing strategies, and more can prevent future markdowns and generate new sales gains.

Bi-weekly data analysis empowers CPG businesses to fine-tune strategies, evaluate new product launches, and assess promotional effectiveness, striking an ideal balance between timely insights and strategic planning.


4. Monthly: the big picture

The end of the month is your chance to step back, assess your progress, and strategize for the future.

Supply chain health

An efficient supply chain is the cornerstone of supplier success.

  • 🚚 On-time in full (OTIF): On-time and in-full percentages are critical performance benchmarks for leading retailers. Review these monthly and strive for improvement where possible to maintain strong partnerships.
  • OOS root cause: With Crisp Retail Analytics’ OOS Root Cause report, you can dig deeper into the reasons behind out-of-stocks. By understanding the underlying causes of stockouts (e.g., delayed shipments, store ops), you can implement solutions to reduce future occurrences and maximize product availability.
  • Distributor fill rates: When it comes to working with distributors like KeHE and UNFI, fill rates are essential. This metric measures how completely suppliers fulfill their DC and store orders (a fill rate below 100% means under-delivery; above 100% implies over-delivery). Just like OTIF, maintaining high fill rates builds strong partnerships. Use fill rate reporting to track progress, inform inventory allocation, and prove your reliability as a supplier.

Year-over-year (YOY) sales reporting

Compare your current sales performance with the previous year to uncover long-term trends, understand seasonality, and benchmark your progress. Easily generate reports to share with executives and shareholders.

Category performance

Deepen understanding of your product categories with category reporting. Analyze sales trends, market share, and competitive insights to optimize product assortment, pricing, and promotions and ultimately drive category growth and strengthen retail partnerships.

Build your future

  • Distribution expansion (UNFI Insights): The distribution expansion dashboard in UNFI Insights reveals where your products aren’t yet selling in the UNFI store network and displays potential gained sales dollars. This and reports for other Crisp-connected retailers like it can create a plan of attack for tangible sales gains!
  • 🎨 Create your sales story: Monthly check-ins empower you to align your data insights with your company’s objectives and goals. With a robust data technology foundation, you can confidently communicate your successes, make swift and informed strategic decisions, and build a clear vision for the future of your products and business.

Harness powerful monthly insights to drive success. Fine-tune operations, seize opportunities, and create a clear roadmap for sustainable growth.

Connect to data from all of your retailer and distributor partners, view Crisp’s data sources.

Subscribe to the blog

* Required

We will handle your contact details in line with our Privacy Policy.

Be Data Ready for Anything

Crisp uses the power of the cloud to connect and analyze all of your data sources in real-time, providing you with the most meaningful insights and trends for your business. When you know exactly what’s in store, you can keep shelves stocked and customers happy while skyrocketing profitability.

You’ll be in good company