Use Google Sheets AI to Build an Inventory Dashboard

What This Does

Google Sheets has built-in AI assistance that helps you build inventory formulas — including days-of-stock calculations, restock alerts, and low-inventory highlighting — without knowing advanced spreadsheet functions.

Before You Start

• You have a Google account (free)
• You have Google Sheets open with your inventory data (or a blank sheet)
• You have columns for: product name, current inventory quantity, and average units sold per day

Steps

1. Set up your basic columns

In Google Sheets, create these columns:

• Column A: Product Name
• Column B: Current Inventory (units)
• Column C: Avg Units Sold/Day (use 30-day average)
• Column D: Days Until Stockout (this is what you'll build)
• Column E: Restock Alert (this will turn red automatically)

2. Get help building the Days Until Stockout formula

Click on cell D2. Then click Help in the top menu bar → Help Sheets and Drives or use the Explore button (bottom right corner — looks like a star icon). Type your question: "How do I divide column B by column C to get days until stockout?"

Alternatively, ask ChatGPT: "In Google Sheets, column B is current inventory and column C is avg daily sales. Write a formula for column D that shows days until stockout. If C2 is zero, show 'N/A' instead of a divide error."

3. Enter the formula

Paste the formula into D2. It should look something like: =IF(C2=0,"N/A",B2/C2)

Click into D2 and drag the fill handle (small square at bottom right of cell) down through all your product rows.

4. Set up conditional formatting for alerts

Select your entire Column D range. Click Format → Conditional formatting. Set: if value is less than 14 → fill with red. Click Done. Now any product with less than 14 days of stock turns red automatically.

5. Add a restock recommendation column

In Column E, get help writing a formula that says "RESTOCK NOW" if D2 < 14, "ORDER SOON" if D2 < 30, and "OK" if D2 >= 30. Ask ChatGPT: "Write a Google Sheets IF formula for this logic: if D2 < 14 show RESTOCK NOW, if D2 < 30 show ORDER SOON, otherwise show OK."

Real Example

Scenario: You have 45 products in your catalog and want to know which ones need to be reordered this week.

What you type/do: Set up columns A-C with your current data from an Amazon inventory export. Build the formula in Column D using the method above. Sort by Column D ascending.

What you get: A ranked list of your products from most urgent to restock to most plentiful — the top 3-5 rows are your immediate action items.

Tips

• Export your inventory data from Amazon Seller Central weekly (Inventory → Manage Inventory → Download)
• For seasonal products, manually adjust Column C during peak seasons — daily sales in November aren't the same as July
• Once built, this dashboard only takes 5 minutes to update — paste new data, and the formulas recalculate automatically

Tool interfaces change — if a button has moved, look for similar AI/magic/smart options in the same menu area.