A catalog lead time is one number covering several dates: when you ordered, when the seller acknowledged, when it shipped, when it reached the dock, and when your people could use the unit. While goods are still arriving, those dates sit on the packing slip, the ship notice, and the receiving log, usually inside the same week. In a shortage they get replaced by the catalog lead time, or by whatever a rep says on the phone that morning. Keep the dates you copied off a receipt while the lane was still ordinary.
Most buyers can name a lead time for the SKUs that would hurt if they disappeared. It usually comes from the vendor page, a quote from last year, or the memory of a delivery that went well. The page assumes nothing in the lane is late, the quote was written to win the order, and memory drops the slow receipt. A row filled in on the day the carton arrived was taken from goods that reached your dock.
Stated dates and actual dates
On a portal lead time of ten business days, receipts for a seasonal SKU at a regional retailer often separate into acknowledgement inside two days, most of a week sitting at the distributor's warehouse, three days of transit, and a release the morning after the cartons hit the dock. Ten business days can be a fair average of that path, and the average still does not say which leg you can shorten. Faster freight can cut the three days on the road, and the week in the warehouse still has to be planned around.
Write the source at the same resolution as the dates. Account, warehouse, and ship-from location change the number, and a company name hides the difference. The same distributor can be four days out of one building and close to a month out of another, and a tight allocation will offer whichever building currently has a quantity. A source written as "Distributor A, Columbus DC" can be set beside a path you have already timed.
Keep partial shipments on their own rows. A lead time on an order that shipped complete differs from an order that arrived in three releases across a month, and averaging them produces a middle you will not experience. If a backorder sat open and then cancelled, write the cancel date. That interval is what tells you whether another PO is still a plan. In-stock and backorder belong on separate rows too. An in-stock buy is pick, pack, transit, and your own release. A backorder may be a production slot, a container, or an allocation that has not been cut yet. Averaging a two-day ship with a six-week slot gives you a lead time the next order will miss.
Note whether time starts at the PO or at cleared payment. Some sellers pick the same day they accept the order. Others wait until a wire lands or a card clears. On an account that already has terms, that gap never shows, so it never gets written down, and it shows up later with a new seller whose page still says in stock while the payment is moving.
Arrival and release belong in separate columns when the building adds time after the carrier leaves. Serial capture, lot paperwork, a transfer to the store, or a truck that only runs to the job site on set days all sit inside the lead time if the unit cannot be used until they are finished. A clinic that cannot pull a lot until it is on the record is measuring a longer lead time than the tracking page. Buyers who send us a deadline sometimes mean the customer's date, then find the building needed two more days the order never included.
Fill the row while the carton is in the building
A shared sheet is enough. One row per receipt, limited to the SKUs that would stall a job, empty a shelf you cannot spare, or miss a date already promised. Everyday replenishment can stay in the purchasing system you already run.
Record SKU, source, quantity ordered, quantity received, date ordered, date acknowledged, date shipped, date received, date released for use, and a note when something held the order, whether credit, a missing certificate, a carrier exception, or a receiving backlog on your side. If a credit limit stopped the order, write that in the note so the row names the hold.
Fill the row when the goods arrive, including in quiet months. At month end the entry becomes "about two weeks," which is what memory produces once the slip is filed. With the packing slip still on the bench, the dates are on the paper or one search away in email. A lead time from a year and a half ago may describe a warehouse or a carrier you no longer use, so if the latest receipt ran much slower than the ones before it, write why.
Account time will not be on the slip. When the sellers who still show a quantity are sellers you have not bought from, the lead time includes the application, the credit review, and a payment method they will accept. Log how long the last new account in that category took, while you still know the day you applied and the day the first order was allowed. A contractor can see a specialty fitting in stock two states away, with a truck that could move it early the next week, and still be nine days out if that is what the last account review took.
Substitute approval belongs on the sheet before anyone is chasing a miss. Some swaps follow a purchasing rule one buyer can apply. Others need a named person: a clinician if the manufacturer changes, the buyer who owns a listing if the unit is open-box or a neighboring model, a general contractor if the part leaves the spec. Time that approval on a calm week and write the name beside the days it took.
While the item can still be bought, note the date each time you purchase or receive it from a given source. A listing that has returned on most Tuesday mornings through a season supports a different plan from an allocation that has landed twice in four months. The in-stock flag does not keep that pattern. When quantity drops to zero, those dates are how long the wait has been on your own purchases. If the vendor allocates on a cadence, log the allocation dates with the ship dates that followed. Time to the next chance is the last allocation plus the cadence you saw. Catalog transit starts only after you have a place in the release.
Read the sheet before the call
When the preferred source shows zero, open the sheet before you phone the rep. The call produces a fresh quote. The sheet has the last dates that were checked against a receipt.
Put the date you need the unit usable next to those paths. If order-to-release runs longer than the time left, a new PO on that source misses the current date. You can still place it so product is moving for the next cycle, and the people holding the job, the appointment block, or the advertised weekend need to hear it as stock for later.
A week inside a distributor's warehouse stays a week when the only change is a faster truck, while transit can come down when a closer warehouse or a will-call counter is available. Sign-off that sits with your own clinician or project lead stays inside the company. When the rows show the SKU only in short windows that sell through the same day, measure the time between stock appearing and a finished purchase, often a few minutes. A buyer checking listings between other work will miss a window that short. A watch with a price ceiling, set to purchase when the unit is at or under the ceiling, fits the dates you already logged.
If the buy is going to someone else, send the dates with the commercial terms. SKU, quantity, ceiling, and ship-to say what to acquire and where it goes, and the sheet says which date those terms have to meet. A horizon copied from a catalog points the search at sources that cannot arrive in time, and it can push aside a source that costs more per unit and still beats the path you have left. We can tell you whether a watch is realistic against the date on your sheet.
Add a column for the cost of being late, stated as the loss the business takes: a missed install day, a procedure block that has to move, or a peg that stays empty through a weekend already advertised. One sentence from the person who owns that loss belongs on the row beside the dates.