The open-to-buy playbook
The open-to-buy playbook: what OTB is, why it breaks in spreadsheets, and how to run it live and reconciled to your forecast. Pairs with the OTB calculator.
Open-to-buy is the budget for what you can still order without over-committing inventory. Done well it keeps the buy in line with the plan and protects cash. Done in a spreadsheet, it is a number that was true at the start of the month and drifts every day as receipts land and sales come in.
Why OTB breaks in a spreadsheet
A spreadsheet OTB is a snapshot. It does not know that half of last week's receipts slipped, or that one category is selling twice as fast as planned. By the time you rebuild it, the buy has already moved. The number meant to control the buy is always describing a position you have already left.
The modern open-to-buy
OTB should be reconciled to the forecast, held at category level, and current to the day. When demand for a category runs hot, the open-to-buy for it should reflect that before you place the next order, not after. When receipts move, the number moves with them. That turns OTB from a monthly report into a live guardrail the whole team buys against.
Running OTB in season
The buy is not one decision, it is many, spread across the season. A live OTB lets you re-buy into what is working and hold back from what is not, inside a budget that stays honest as the picture changes. The plan flexes, but the cash ceiling holds.
Guardrails
Set the limits once: buy caps by category, margin floors, and the sign-off level for anything above threshold. Inside those limits the buy can move quickly. Above them it waits for a human yes. That is how you move fast without losing control of the money.
Use this playbook with the open-to-buy calculator to run the numbers on your own categories.