Rank suppliers and products by return with IRR Analytics

IRR Analytics ranks every supplier and every product by its Internal Rate of Return — the annualized, money-weighted return on the cash you deploy, the way a bond yield or a fund's IRR works. Capital goes out when you pay suppliers, cash comes in as the goods sell, and IRR turns that timeline into one comparable number. It's the purchasing great equalizer: a slow, cheap product and a fast, expensive one land on the same scale.

Before you begin

• You need permission to view reports.
• IRR is computed from your purchase orders and the sales that draw them down, so you need orders that have received stock and sold through. The ranking is most reliable for fully sold-through orders — a complete cash cycle with nothing left to estimate.

Open the report

1. Go to Insights → Reports and open IRR Analytics.
2. The report opens on By Supplier, with the leaderboard ranked by IRR.

Read the leaderboard

Four tiles across the top summarize your whole book:

• Capital Deployed — the cash you've put into the ranked orders.
• Total Profit — what those orders have returned.
• Blended Multiple — profit-weighted MOIC across the book (money-in ÷ money-out).
• Top Performer — the best single IRR.

Below the tiles, each row is a supplier ranked by IRR, with its multiple (MOIC), capital, revenue, units sold, percent sold, order month, and hold in days.

Two things to know when you read a row:

• Growth multiples. An IRR of 1,000%/yr or more is shown as a ×/yr growth multiple (e.g. 10.0×/yr) instead of an unreadable percentage. Returns below that threshold read as an ordinary percentage (e.g. 152%).
• Sold on terms. A Sold on terms chip means the order sold before you paid the supplier — negative working capital. The cash came in first, so the return is real even though it looks like recovery preceded the outflow. A short tag flags an extreme rate coming from a very short hold, which is kept out of the headline ranking so a few days can't distort the board.

Switch to By Product to re-cut the exact same returns per item instead of per supplier. The math is identical; only the grouping changes.

Prove any rank

Every rank is auditable. Click the proof icon on a row to open Return proof · cash flows — the actual cash flows behind that supplier or product, month by month: cash out to the supplier, then cash in as the stock sells. Each order shows its active window (first cash movement → last), and orders that sold on terms carry the same Sold on terms chip so the window reads honestly rather than looking backwards. Click any order inside the proof to drill into that single order's full breakdown — its Cash flow tab, described under On a purchase order below.

Realized only vs. the full book

By default, Realized only (fully sold through) is on, so the board ranks only orders where every unit has sold — the proven return, with nothing estimated. Turn it off to include open positions, which are marked at cost; the totals then swing to reflect stock you haven't sold yet. Leave it on to compare proven results; turn it off to see the whole book, projections included.

Reconciliation events — recounts, not losses

A bulk stock-take write-off can look like a trading loss even when it's just a recount to match your 3PL. When a supplier or product has material write-offs, its row shows a $… in stock-takes chip. Open the chip to see the split for that row — the return counted as a loss versus the return credited back as a recount — with a link to each underlying stock take.

Tick Exclude reconciliation events to switch the whole board to the recount view at once: write-offs are treated as inventory recounts rather than losses, and their cost is credited back to the return. Capital deployed is unchanged — only how the write-offs are counted changes.

Set a baseline date

Use Analyze from (default All time) to rank only orders placed on or after a chosen date. Reset the baseline after a big event — a supplier change or a strategy shift — so a new stretch of orders is judged on its own, without older history dragging the numbers.

IRR everywhere: orders and suppliers

The report is the leaderboard, but the same number is attached to the orders and suppliers it's built from — so you can read a return without leaving what you're doing.

On the purchase orders list

Open Orders → Purchase Orders. IRR isn't shown by default — open the column picker and switch on IRR % and Sell-through %. Every order then carries:

• IRR % — that order's annualized return. This column reads as a plain percentage even when it's large; the report's ×/yr growth-multiple shorthand is a report-only convenience, not used here.
• Sell-through % — how much of the order has sold, so you can weigh how settled the return is.
• A small dot beside a provisional IRR — an order sold through too lightly for the figure to be trusted yet. It's shown, but flagged so you don't act on a number a couple of early sales produced.

Use the Return filters in Advanced Filters to slice the list — e.g. every order under a target IRR, or everything not yet fully sold.

On a purchase order: the Cash flow tab

Open any purchase order and switch to its Cash flow tab. Where the report gives one number per supplier or product, this breaks a single order down, from its return to every dollar behind it:

• The return — the order's Annualized IRR and money multiple (MOIC), with tiles for Days held, Sold through, Capital deployed, Profit, and NPV @ hurdle (the profit discounted at your hurdle rate). The Sold on terms and short period chips carry over from the report, with short notes explaining each. You see the return when you can view the IRR Analytics report; everyone else who can open the order sees the cash below.
• Where the units went — every unit received, shown as sold, still owned or lost, and where: sold at Amazon, sold from your own warehouse, on hand, in transit between warehouses, or removed and adjusted. Hover a label to read it in full.
• Cash out and back by category — the order's cash totalled by what it was for: supplier deposit, balance payment, freight and duty, Amazon inbound fees, Amazon payouts, Amazon reimbursements, sales revenue and remaining stock at cost, with the net at the bottom. An Includes estimates tag marks a total that isn't all recorded cash.
• Cash-flow timeline — each cash flow on its date: cash out below the line, cash back above it.
• Cash flows — one row per dated payment, payout, fee or sale, with its Category, units, the units still to sell, and the record it came from (linked where that record has its own page). An Estimated tag marks anything that isn't a recorded payment: remaining stock valued at cost, capital worked out from the received cost, or an Amazon payout that hasn't been paid out yet.

The Product / Fully-loaded toggle at the top drives all of it: rank on the plain product cost, or on the fully-loaded cost that also includes freight and duty. Fully-loaded is the truer return; product-only shows the trading margin before landing costs.

Purchase orders received into Amazon

When a purchase order's stock goes into Amazon — straight into FBA, or into AWD first — the Cash flow tab follows every unit to the place it actually sold.

• Only customer sales bring cash back. Moving stock from AWD to FBA, from AWD to your own warehouse or 3PL, or between Amazon fulfillment centers isn't a sale. The tab follows the units to where they landed and count them when a customer buys them. Units sold from your own warehouse, or shipped from AWD straight to a customer, bring back that order's revenue. Stock you received into your own warehouse and later sent to FBA is followed the same way.
• Where the units went shows each unit as sold at Amazon, sold from your own warehouse, shipped from AWD to a customer, on hand at Amazon, in transit between warehouses, waiting in your own warehouse, or removed and adjusted.

For these orders, a second toggle next to Product / Fully-loaded chooses what counts as cash back, for the return and the cash alike:

• Amazon payout (selected by default) — what Amazon actually paid you for the units sold, after its referral, fulfillment and other per-order fees, dated on the day the settlement was paid out. Sales in a settlement that hasn't been paid out yet show as Amazon payout pending at today's date, marked Estimated. Because Amazon mixes your stock with other orders' stock, each sale is priced at what the product paid out per unit on orders placed around the same date.
• Sales revenue — each order's revenue before Amazon's fees, dated at the sale. This is the figure the IRR Analytics leaderboard ranks on.

With Amazon payout selected, the inbound fees Amazon takes out of your payouts — placement, partnered-carrier transport, AGL freight and duty, and AWD processing — appear as their own outflows on the settlement's payout date, under Amazon inbound fees or Freight & duty. Each fee is counted once: it's never also taken out of the payout, and a fee already included in the order's landed cost isn't added to its capital a second time.

Two more Amazon amounts appear with Amazon payout selected:

• Amazon reimbursements — when Amazon loses or damages some of the order's units and pays you for them, that payment comes back as cash on the date the settlement paid it out. If Amazon later takes a reimbursement back (the units turned up), it shows as a negative amount on that date.

  This includes units Amazon never received. When you record an inbound shortage on a shipment and Amazon reimburses those units, the payment comes back to the purchase order the units came from. A shipment sent straight from the order to FBA gives all of it to that order. A shipment from AWD to FBA that carried several orders' stock gives each order its share of the units that left AWD. The order's short units count as lost, not as stock still on its way, so they aren't counted again in its remaining stock at cost. A reimbursement Amazon has approved but not yet paid out shows on its approval date, marked as an estimate.

• Amazon storage (with Fully-loaded selected) — the order's share of Amazon's monthly and long-term FBA storage fees, worked out from how many of its units were at FBA when each fee was charged. Each month's fee is dated the 15th of the following month, when Amazon takes it from your payout. These fees replace the storage costs that Fully-loaded otherwise spreads across products by sales, so storage is never counted twice.

Export cash flows

One order. On the purchase order's Cash flow tab, click Export. The CSV downloads straight away and matches what's on screen: the Amazon payout or Sales revenue basis and the Product or Fully-loaded cost you picked.

Many orders. To work with the dated cash flows of many purchase orders in one spreadsheet:

1. Go to Orders → Purchase Orders. Filter or select the orders you want.
2. Click Export.
3. Under Records to export, choose All records, Filtered results, Current page or, when you've ticked orders, Selected records.
4. Under Content, choose Cash flows. The file format switches to CSV, the only format this export comes in.
5. Click Export. The export runs in the background. Follow it in the job tray (the lightning icon in the top bar) and download the file from there when it's done.

Both exports have one row per dated cash flow, with the same fixed set of columns (the columns shown in your table don't apply):

Column	What it holds
Purchase Order	The purchase order number.
Supplier	The supplier's name.
Destination Warehouse	Where the order was received.
Basis	Amazon payout for orders received into Amazon, Sales revenue for every other order.
Date	The day the cash moved (or is expected to), as YYYY-MM-DD.
Type	Deposit, Payment, Estimated payment, Inventory cost, Refund, Sale, Amazon payout, Amazon fee, Amazon storage, Reimbursement, Cost entry or Remaining stock.
Category	The same categories as Cash out and back by category.
Detail	The description shown in the Cash flows list.
Units	Units sold, received or still owned; blank for a payment or fee.
Amount	Negative for cash out, positive for cash back, in your company currency.
Estimated	Yes for anything that isn't a recorded payment, otherwise No.
Source	The kind of record the cash flow came from — for example Vendor Deposit, Bill, Sales Order Line, Purchase Order, Cost Allocation or Amazon Settlement.
Source ID	That record's ID.

From the purchase orders list, each order is exported on its own default basis and its fully-loaded cost, so allocated cost entries and Amazon storage are included; filter the Category column to leave them out. Export from an order's Cash flow tab when you need a different basis or the product cost only. These are exports only; there's no matching import.

On a supplier

Open a supplier and switch to its IRR tab. Up top, four KPI cards show that supplier's Annualized IRR, money multiple, profit, and capital deployed — with days held and percent sold as the subtitle under capital. Below, a Products ranked by IRR table lists every product you buy from them, best return first — the report's By-Product view, scoped to one supplier.

Next steps

• Value your inventory — the cost basis IRR draws its capital figures from.
• Segment the Profitability report by customer tag — margin by segment, alongside return by supplier.
• Reports catalog — other reports and what each answers.

Video transcript

Open Insights, then Reports, and choose IRR Analytics. It ranks every supplier and every product by IRR — the annualized, money-weighted return on the cash you deploy. Four tiles summarize your whole book: capital deployed, total profit, blended multiple, and top performer. Below them, suppliers rank by IRR. Cascade Components leads. Its sold-on-terms tag means the sale landed before you paid the supplier. Switch to By Product to re-cut the same returns per item. The Cascade Stainless Hinge tops the list. The math is identical — only the grouping changes. You can audit every rank. Click the proof icon at the end of a row. Return proof lists the cash out to the supplier, then the cash in as it sells, month by month. This order sold on terms, so the money came in first. By default, IRR Analytics ranks only fully sold-through orders — the proven return. Close the proof, then turn Realized only off. Now open positions appear, marked at cost. The totals swing to reflect stock you haven't sold yet. Bulk stock-take write-offs can look like trading losses. Apex Distribution shows six hundred dollars in stock-takes. Click it to see the split: a loss, or a recount. Turn on Exclude reconciliation events to switch the whole board to the recount view. Then clear it, and turn Realized only back on. IRR follows your orders everywhere. On the purchase orders list, use the column picker to add the IRR column. With sell-through added too, every order shows its own return and how much of it has sold. A small dot flags a provisional figure — an order too lightly sold to trust yet. Open a purchase order and its Cash flow tab breaks that single order down — annualized return, money multiple, days held, and percent sold. Toggle the product cost against the fully-loaded cost with freight and duty. Below, where the units went shows what sold, what you still own, and what was lost. Cash out and back by category totals the deposit, the payments, freight and duty, and the cash that came back. Then every cash flow sits on its own date. For stock you send into Amazon, only customer sales bring cash back. Moves out of AWD, to Amazon or to your own warehouse, are followed to where the units sold. Amazon payout shows what each settlement paid you after Amazon's fees, on the day it was paid out. Inbound fees Amazon kept appear as their own outflows on the same date. Sales revenue shows each order's revenue before Amazon's fees — the figure the leaderboard ranks. To work with many orders in a spreadsheet, go back to the purchase orders list and click Export. Choose Cash flows: one row per dated payment, payout, fee and sale, as a CSV that's ready in the job tray. Each supplier has an IRR tab too — return, multiple, profit, and hold up top, then every product you buy from them, ranked by IRR. It's the same honest number as the report, wherever you happen to be working. It all rolls up in the report, under Insights, Reports. Set a baseline date to judge a fresh stretch of orders on its own. Sort any column to find your best and worst cash. IRR Analytics — the purchasing great equalizer, one honest number per supplier and product.