Running out of a best-seller is one of those things that quietly costs you money. A customer walks in, doesn’t see what they want, and walks out — you might never even know it happened. Item Reorder Alerts fix that by watching your stock levels and letting you know when it’s time to reorder, before the shelf goes empty.
How They Work #
You set a quantity threshold for any item in your system. When that item’s quantity on hand drops to or below that number, TORO sends an alert to everyone you’ve added as a recipient. It checks automatically in the background — you don’t have to remember to look.
The alert also factors in what you’ve already ordered. If there’s an active purchase order with that item on it, TORO adds that incoming quantity to your current stock when deciding whether to trigger the alert. So you won’t get nagged about something that’s already on its way.
Setting Up an Alert #
There are two ways to get to the Item Reorder Alerts screen:
- From an item: Open the item in Item Details and click Set Item Reorder Alert
- From the menu: Go to Admin Tools > Inventory & Purchasing > View Reorder Alerts
The first way is faster when you’re already looking at the item. The second way gives you the full list of every alert you’ve set up across your inventory.
Creating a New Alert #
- Click the + button on the right side of the alerts table
- If you came in from the menu (not from a specific item), you’ll be asked to pick an item first
- Set the Quantity — this is your threshold. When stock hits this number or lower, the alert fires
- Write a Message — this is what gets sent to recipients. Keep it under 200 characters. There’s a default message already filled in, but you can customize it to say whatever’s useful for your team
- Add Notes if you want — these are for your own reference and don’t get sent with the alert
- Click Save
That’s it. The alert is active immediately.
Editing an Alert #
Select an alert in the table and click the * button (or just double-click it). You can change the threshold, message, active status, or anything else. Hit Save when you’re done.
If you want to temporarily stop an alert without deleting it, just uncheck the Active checkbox in the editor.
Managing Recipients #
The bottom section of the Item Reorder Alerts screen shows Alert Recipients — these are the people who get notified when any item reorder alert triggers.
Adding a Recipient #
Click the + button next to the recipients table. You’ll see a list of your employees — pick who should receive alerts. You can select multiple people at once.
Editing a Recipient’s Channels #
Double-click a recipient (or select them and click *) to open their notification profile. This is where they choose how they want to be reached — SMS, Email, Pushover, or TORO Internal Message. They can enable as many channels as they want.
This is the same notification profile used across TORO’s messaging system, so if someone already has their channels set up for other notification types, they’re good to go.
Removing a Recipient #
Select a recipient and click the – button. You’ll be asked to confirm before they’re removed.
How Notification Delivery Works #
Here’s something that makes this simple: you don’t configure delivery channels per alert. Instead, each recipient controls their own channel preferences. When an alert fires, TORO sends it through whatever channels that person has turned on — SMS, email, Pushover, internal message, or any combination.
This means if someone wants all their TORO notifications by text, they set that once and every alert type respects it. No need to check boxes on every individual alert.
Test Alert #
When you’re editing an alert, you’ll see a Test Alert button at the bottom. Click it and TORO sends a test message through all your configured channels right then and there. The message will be prefixed with “(TEST)” so everyone knows it’s not a real low-stock situation.
This is a good way to make sure everything is wired up correctly — especially after adding a new recipient or changing notification channels.
Auto-Creating Purchase Orders #
For items you reorder regularly, you can take it a step further. In the alert editor, check Build Purchase Order and TORO will automatically create a PO when the alert triggers.
You’ll need to set a few things:
- Item SKU — click Set Item Sku to pick which SKU to order
- Company — click Set Company to choose the vendor
- Purchase Order Quantity — how many to order
If you also check Auto-send Purchase Order, TORO won’t just create the PO — it’ll send it to your vendor automatically. If you leave that unchecked, the PO gets created in a pending state so you can review it first.
TORO is smart about this too. If there’s already a pending PO with that item on it, it won’t create a duplicate. You’ll get the alert message either way, but the PO step gets skipped to avoid double-ordering.
Filtering the Alerts List #
The main screen has a couple of tools to help you find what you’re looking for:
- Show Active Only — checked by default, this hides inactive alerts so you see only the ones that are actually running
- Item Filter — click Set Item to narrow the list to alerts for a specific item. Click Clear Item to see everything again
Tips #
- Start with your top sellers. You probably know which five items hurt the most when they’re out of stock — set alerts on those first and expand from there.
- Set your threshold high enough to give yourself lead time. If your vendor takes a week to deliver, don’t set the alert at zero — set it at whatever you’d normally sell in that week.
- Use the Test Alert button after adding new recipients. It takes two seconds and saves you from finding out your alerts aren’t working when you actually need them.
Related Articles #
- How TORO Manages Your Inventory — Understanding SKUs, stock levels, and the big picture
- Creating a Purchase Order — The manual way to reorder from your vendors
