Guide

Low stock alerts for Xero

"Can Xero email me when stock gets low?" is one of the most-requested features on Xero's own forums — and the answer today is still no. Here are the workarounds people use, why most of them quietly fail, and how to get a reliable alert instead.

Why Xero doesn't alert you

Xero's tracked inventory is designed to keep your books accurate — it values stock, posts cost of goods sold, and keeps quantities in step with invoices and bills. Operational nudges aren't part of that job, so the reorder-point field is stored but never acted on. Xero Inventory Plus adds more, but it is built for sellers on Shopify and Amazon, which leaves everyone else where they started.

The workarounds, and where each one breaks

Manual report reviews. Works while it's somebody's explicit job. Skips happen in busy weeks — the exact weeks stock moves fastest.
Spreadsheet exports. Accurate the day you export and stale the day after. Maintenance grows with your catalogue.
Full inventory platforms. They genuinely solve it, along with fifty other things you didn't ask for, at $186–349 per month.
Custom scripts. Fine until the OAuth token expires, the API changes, or the person who wrote it moves on.

What a good alert actually looks like

An alert is only useful if it is timely, quiet, and actionable. Timely means checked on a schedule rather than when someone remembers. Quiet means one message per breach — if a SKU sits below its reorder point for a fortnight while you wait for the delivery, that is one email, not fourteen. Actionable means the email tells you the SKU, what's on hand, the reorder point, and the supplier, and links straight to a screen where the purchase order is one click away.

ReorderPilot works that way by design. Alert episodes open when stock crosses the line and close when it recovers, so you are never nagged and never miss the next dip. Seasonal lines can be snoozed until a date. The dashboard shows every low item with an estimated days-to-stockout, and you can turn emails off entirely and just use the dashboard.

From alert to purchase order

Knowing you are low is half the job. From the same list you can create draft purchase orders in Xero — one per supplier, quantities respecting minimum order quantities, prices and account codes taken from each item's own Xero record, tax left to your organisation's defaults. They are drafts: you approve and send them in Xero yourself. Items already covered by an open PO are skipped, so you can't double-order.

More detail in how alerts work and drafting purchase orders.

Try it on your own Xero data

14-day free trial. Connect your organisation, confirm your reorder points, and see the first draft PO in minutes.

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Common questions

Does Xero send low stock alerts?

No. Xero can store a reorder point against a tracked inventory item, but it does not notify anyone when stock falls to or below that level. Checking is manual.

Can I set up a low stock report in Xero instead?

You can run the Inventory Item Details report and review quantities manually. It tells you the position at the moment you look, so it depends on somebody remembering to run it — which is where the approach usually breaks down.

How often should stock be checked?

Daily is enough for most businesses with 20–500 SKUs, since a supplier lead time is usually measured in days or weeks. Checking more often adds noise without buying you meaningful warning time.

Will I get spammed with repeat alerts?

Not with ReorderPilot. Each SKU alerts once per breach: you're emailed the first time it drops below its reorder point, then not again while it stays low. When stock recovers the episode closes, so the next dip alerts fresh.