WC Inventory Overview 1.40.0

WC Inventory Overview 1.40.0 — Reorder-to-Draft Purchasing Workflow

Release Date: August 2026
Plugin Version: 1.40.0
Database Version: 11 (unchanged from v1.38.0)

Overview

This release closes the loop on the plugin's existing "Needs reorder" signal (v1.38.0): a low-stock item that genuinely needs reordering can now go straight to a draft Purchase Order, prefilled from the supplier information the plugin already knows about it — with an optional layer of merchant-set defaults to make repeat purchasing even faster.

You stay in control at every step. Nothing is ever ordered automatically. The new "Create Draft PO" action only opens the existing New Purchase Order screen with some fields pre-filled; you review, edit anything you like, and submit it yourself exactly as you always have.

What's new

• "Create Draft PO" quick action — on any Inventory Overview row already showing "Needs reorder," a new button takes you straight to a New Purchase Order form for that item, with the product and (where clear) a supplier already selected.
• Automatic supplier suggestion from purchase history — if an item has been ordered from exactly one supplier before, that supplier is pre-selected. If it's been ordered from more than one, or never, you'll see a short note and pick one yourself — nothing is guessed.
• Preferred supplier — you can now set a specific "go-to" supplier for any product or product variation, on the product's own edit screen. When set, it's used directly instead of the purchase-history guess. If that supplier is later archived or merged into another, the form safely falls back to the purchase-history behavior and lets you know why — your saved preference is never silently lost.
• Default replenishment quantity — you can also set a standard reorder quantity for any product or variation, so the New PO form starts with the amount you usually order instead of a plain default of 1. You can always change it before submitting.
• Product and variation defaults are independent. Each variation keeps its own preferred supplier and quantity — setting one on a variation never affects its parent product or sibling variations.

Why this matters to you

• Fewer clicks for repeat purchasing. Once you've set a preferred supplier and usual quantity for your regular items, reordering them is close to a two-click action: click "Create Draft PO," review, submit.
• Nothing happens without your review. The quick action never creates a Purchase Order by itself — it only opens the existing form, pre-filled. Every draft is still created only when you submit the form, through the exact same validated purchasing pipeline as before.
• Safe by default. An out-of-date preferred supplier (archived or merged) is never silently used — you'll see a clear notice and a sensible fallback instead.
• Nothing is removed. Every existing Purchase Order, Supplier, and Inventory Overview screen behaves exactly as it did in v1.38.0, with this new action added alongside.

Visibility

The "Create Draft PO" quick action is visible to users who can manage Purchase Orders (the same access level already required to create one manually). The new preferred-supplier and default-quantity fields on the product edit screen are visible to anyone who can edit that product — the same access level WooCommerce already uses for all other product fields.

What to expect after upgrading

• No database change — DB_VERSION stays at 11. The upgrade is a plain code swap with nothing to migrate. The two new settings (preferred supplier, default quantity) are stored as ordinary product data, the same way WooCommerce stores any other product field.
• No new settings to configure and no migration step to run. Every existing screen, filter, bulk action, and workflow behaves exactly as it did in v1.38.0 until you choose to set a preferred supplier or default quantity somewhere.
• Existing Purchase Orders, Suppliers, and their history are completely unaffected.

Compatibility

• Requires PHP 7.4+
• Requires WordPress 6.0+
• Compatible with WooCommerce 6.0–8.5+
• HPOS-compatible (High-Performance Order Storage)

Upgrade notes

Because this release changes no schema and no existing stored data, it carries the same low-risk profile as a typical plugin update: back up as you normally would before any update, then upgrade normally. No feature-specific migration or setup is required — the new fields simply appear, unset, on your existing products.

Known limitations

Purchase quantity suggestions are always a fixed number you set yourself — the plugin does not forecast demand, sales velocity, or lead time, and does not calculate a target stock level. Supplier suggestions come only from your own explicit choice or from this item's own purchase history; the plugin never learns or infers a preference on its own. Setting a preferred supplier or quantity for many product variations at once is not included in this release.

Additional information

For questions or issues, see the plugin's Settings tab and the built-in admin help sections.

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This release bundles two milestones (M22, M23) as one feature train, following the same release pattern used for the M9–M12 (v1.29.0), M13–M15 (v1.32.0), and M18–M19 (v1.36.0) trains. Intermediate development version 1.39.0 (M22 alone) was never tagged or published. It builds directly on v1.38.0. Previous releases (M0–M8 GA, M9–M12 feature train, M13–M15 feature train, M16, M17, M18–M19 feature train, M20, M21) remain in their respective version tags.