Alerts for Oversell Risk (negative on-hand projected).
At a glance
A live list of catalog item variations that are projected to fall below zero on-hand once the orders already in flight are fulfilled. This is the forward-looking sibling to a stockout, it catches the moment you have sold more than you have before the cancellation emails go out. On Square, where one merchant of record takes orders from POS, web, and invoices against a shared on-hand count, oversell happens fast.
| What it counts | Item variations where current on-hand minus committed / pending order quantity is projected to be less than zero, per location_id. Built from Square Inventory counts (on-hand) and open Orders not yet fulfilled. |
| Channel / source treatment | All channels combined. Pending demand can come from Square POS holds, Square Online web orders, or Square Invoices. Any of them can push projected on-hand negative against the shared count. |
| Currency / unit | Count of at-risk variations (whole number). Each row shows the variation, SKU, location, current on-hand, pending quantity, and the projected shortfall. |
| Time window | RT (real time). The projection is recomputed continuously as orders and stock counts change. |
| Alert trigger | Fires when any variation has projected on-hand after pending orders below zero. The list is ranked by the size of the projected shortfall. |
| Roles | owner, operations, finance |
| Why finance cares | Each projected oversell is a likely refund and a customer service cost, plus potential reputational damage. It is revenue at risk, not revenue earned. |
| Difference from out of stock | Out of stock is zero now. Oversell risk is below zero soon, you have already taken the orders you cannot fulfil. |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Square Online data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A US gourmet food merchant on Square. One kitchen-and-store location plus a Square Online storefront for nationwide shipping. The alert list is checked on the morning of 14 Mar 26.| Item variation | SKU | Location | On-hand now | Pending orders | Projected on-hand | At risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot Sauce, Reaper, 150ml | HS-RPR-150 | LOC_001 | 8 | 14 | -6 | Yes |
| Spice Box, Gift Set | SPB-GIFT | LOC_001 | 3 | 5 | -2 | Yes |
| Olive Oil, 500ml | OO-500 | LOC_001 | 40 | 12 | 28 | No |
| Coffee Rub, 100g | CR-100 | LOC_001 | 1 | 4 | -3 | Yes |
| At-risk variations (this card) | 3 |
- Healthy stock can still be at risk. The Hot Sauce has 8 units on hand, which looks fine on a simple stock report, but 14 are already committed across web and invoice orders. The projection of -6 means six customers will get a cancellation unless stock is replenished or orders are reprioritised. A current-stock view would have missed this entirely.
- The smallest shortfall is often the easiest fix. The Coffee Rub at -3 needs only a few units to clear. Work the list by impact and effort, sometimes clearing the small shortfalls quickly protects the most customers, while the large ones need a purchase order.
- Pending demand is multi-channel. The Spice Box shortfall comes partly from a Square Invoice (a corporate gift order) and partly from web. Because Square shares one on-hand count, a single large invoice can tip a web-popular item into oversell. Pair with Revenue by Channel to see where the demand is coming from.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Oversell Risk |
|---|---|
| POS to Online Inventory Drift Alert | Drift is a leading cause of oversell. When POS and online disagree about stock, the inflated channel keeps selling and pushes projected on-hand negative. |
| Out-of-Stock Items | Out of stock is the present-tense version. Oversell risk is the future-tense warning that fires before an item is even at zero. |
| Low Stock Products | Low stock is the early warning band. An item moving from low stock into oversell risk has crossed from caution into action-now. |
| Revenue at Risk (live) | Quantifies the money behind the oversell. This card counts the variations; that card values the exposure. |
| Open Orders | The pending order quantity driving the projection lives here. A surge in open orders can trigger oversell risk without any stock change. |
| Canceled Orders (24h) | The downstream consequence. Unaddressed oversell risk turns into cancellations; watch this card to confirm whether the risk is materialising. |
Reconciling against Square
Where to look in the Square Dashboard: Square Dashboard, Items & Orders, Inventory management for the current on-hand count, and Items & Orders, Orders filtered to open / unfulfilled to see committed demand. Square does not show a single projected figure, so the projection here is on-hand minus the open order quantity for each variation. To confirm a row, read the on-hand for the SKU and subtract the quantity of that SKU across open orders at the same location. Other Square Dashboard views that look like the same thing but aren’t:- Inventory management, on-hand: shows current stock only, not the projection. An item can look fine here and still be at risk.
- Orders, open / in progress: shows the pending demand side. Cross-reference with on-hand to reproduce the projection.
- Low stock alerts in Square: Square can flag low stock against a reorder threshold, but that is a static threshold, not a demand-aware projection. This card is forward-looking.
- Item sales report: historical sales, not committed future demand. Not relevant for the projection.
| Reason | Direction of divergence |
|---|---|
| Square has no single projected figure. The dashboard shows on-hand and open orders separately; this card combines them, so there is no one screen that prints the same number. | Expected, reproduce by subtracting open-order quantity from on-hand |
| Order state interpretation. Which open / pending states count as committed demand can vary by fulfilment setup. We count orders not yet fulfilled at the same location. | Minor differences if some open orders will not actually draw stock |
| In-flight stock receipts. A purchase order received in Square but not yet counted in raises on-hand and can clear a risk row faster than expected. | Self-resolves once the receipt is committed |
| Sync lag. On-hand counts and order updates are near-real-time but the latest changes may take a short cycle to reach our index. | Self-resolves within minutes |
| Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue at Risk (live) | At-risk variations should map to a revenue-at-risk figure | A high-value variation with a small shortfall can carry more revenue risk than a low-value variation with a large shortfall. |
google_analytics.product-performance | No direct relationship | GA4 measures web demand and conversion, not stock projections. A spike in web demand for an at-risk item is the upstream pressure, but GA4 cannot confirm the oversell. |