PO Coverage Percent Formula
How apparel buyers calculate PO coverage — whether open purchase orders will deliver the units the plan needs.
What PO Coverage measures
PO coverage is the share of planned units already committed on open purchase orders. It is the buyer's running status on whether the buy is complete, behind, or over.
PO Coverage % = Units on Order ÷ Units Needed × 100Worked apparel example
A plan needs 3,000 units for a department; open POs account for 2,800.
PO Coverage % = 2,800 ÷ 3,000 = 93.3%
Six weeks from season start, 93% coverage is a material gap. The buyer decides: fill-in order from an existing vendor, air-freight acceleration, or accept the shortfall against sell-through.
93.3% coverage — minor fill-in needed.
Benchmark ranges
Failure modes we see
Coverage tracked in the buy file, not against plan. Buyer's worksheet says POs are complete. But the plan was re-forecast upward three weeks ago and nobody synced the worksheet. Coverage reads 100% against the old plan and 82% against the current plan.
How RetailNorthstar handles PO coverage
Coverage runs live against the current forecast, not a frozen plan row. Every time the forecast updates, the coverage gap recomputes. Buyers see the delta before it compounds.
Related formulas
- Buy Quantity — the unit target
- Open-to-Buy — the dollar version of the same question
- Fill Rate — coverage shortfall becomes fill-rate miss
See PO coverage live against current plan — with chase recommendations surfaced when coverage slips.
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