> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.spherecast.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Planning overview

> An aggregate, time-phased view of the whole plan for leadership and S&OP review.

## What this page is for

The **Planning overview** is the top-down view of your plan. Instead of one product at a time, it rolls the whole plan up across your hierarchy and lays it out as a **time series** — one column per period, with headers like "Sep 25," "Oct 25," and so on. You can read it in **units or currency**.

It's built for **leadership and S\&OP review** (Sales & Operations Planning) — the monthly conversation about whether the plan hangs together, where cash and risk sit, and how the forecast compares to the goal. Individual planners use it to sanity-check the aggregate before drilling into product-level screens.

## What you see

Each row is a metric; each column is a period. Reading a row left to right shows you its **trend** over the horizon.

| Metric                      | What it means                                                                             |
| --------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Inventory — start / end** | Inventory on hand at the start and end of each period.                                    |
| **WOS — start / end**       | Weeks of Stock (how many weeks your inventory covers) at the start and end of the period. |
| **DOS — start / end**       | Days of Stock, the same coverage read in days, at the start and end.                      |
| **COGS**                    | Cost of Goods Sold — forecasted units × unit cost.                                        |
| **Consumption**             | Demand that draws stock down for raw materials or production.                             |
| **Sales forecast**          | Your consensus forecast — the agreed demand plan.                                         |
| **Target**                  | The top-down goal from leadership.                                                        |
| **Forecast gap (abs / %)**  | The difference between forecast and target, shown as an absolute number and a percentage. |
| **Supply**                  | Incoming stock, from purchase orders.                                                     |
| **Cash requirements**       | Cash needed, by month, to cover incoming supply.                                          |
| **Stockout risk**           | Revenue at risk from potential stockouts.                                                 |
| **Expiry risk**             | Inventory value at risk from lots expiring before they're used or sold.                   |

## How to read it

Follow the **trend across the columns**, not just any single cell:

* **Inventory and coverage (WOS/DOS)** drifting down period over period is an early warning that the plan tightens later in the horizon.
* **Forecast gap** shows whether the plan is chasing or falling short of leadership's target — a widening gap is a talking point for the S\&OP meeting.
* **Stockout risk** and **expiry risk** point at the two failure modes: too little stock (lost revenue) and too much of the wrong stock (value written off). Watch which one grows.
* **Cash requirements** lines up spend against the calendar so finance can see the peaks coming.

Switch between **units and currency** depending on the audience — operations often think in units, leadership in dollars.

## Example

In an S\&OP review, the team scans the **Sales forecast** and **Target** rows and sees a forecast gap opening up in Q4: the plan is 8% under the goal. The **Stockout risk** row rises in the same months, and **Cash requirements** spikes in October. Together those three rows frame the decision — pull supply in, or accept the shortfall — before anyone opens a product-level report.

> **Tip:** Start every review at the aggregate here, spot the two or three periods that look off, then drill into [Inventory metrics per product](/guide/reports/inventory-metrics-per-product) to find the SKUs driving them. See also [Demand planning overview](/guide/demand-planning/overview) and [Cash Requirements](/guide/reports/cashflow-projection).