Cash flow

How much cash your next container ties up, and when

The average you have tied up in stock is worth knowing. The number that decides whether the next container gets paid for is the month when two orders want money at the same time.

Marcus VolstedCo-founder, Restocio Published 11 September 2026Updated 11 September 20268 min read

How much cash your next container ties up, and when

The cash a sea-freight reorder cycle ties up is your daily landed cost of goods sold multiplied by the days between paying for a unit and selling it. In the worked example below that is nearly four months, about 1.3 orders' worth, and the cycle's payments land in one burst, a whole order's cost inside 30 days. Why a profitable importer has no cash is its own page. This one works out the amount and the date.

Which days does the money leave on?

Three payments per order, spread across about a hundred days, and none of them waits for a sale. The example uses round numbers and leaves out VAT and duty, and every row can be overwritten with your own supplier's terms and your forwarder's invoice dates.

A product sells 25 units a day. The factory charges 8.00 a unit and freight adds 1.60, so each unit lands at 9.60. You order 90 days of sales, 2,250 units, paying 30 per cent on order and the rest before loading. Production takes 30 days, the crossing 70, clearing and shelving five more. Here the forwarder bills on landing. Yours may bill at departure, which moves that row earlier.

Day	What happens	Paid that day	Paid on this order
0	Order placed, deposit paid	5,400	5,400
30	Production ends, balance paid, goods sail	12,600	18,000
31 to 89	On the water. Nothing due, nothing sellable	0	18,000
90	Next order goes in, 15 days before this one reaches the shelf	5,400 (next order)	18,000
100	Container lands, freight invoiced	3,600	21,600
105	Cleared and shelved, first sale possible	0	21,600
120	Next order's balance due	12,600 (next order)	21,600
195	Last of the 2,250 units sells	0	21,600, all back as sales

Day 90 is not a choice. Each order covers 90 days of sales, so the next one goes in 90 days after this one, before this container has even reached the shelf. The deadline arithmetic is in the Shopify replenishment guide.

How much cash does one reorder cycle tie up?

Your daily landed cost multiplied by how many days that money is away, counted separately for goods and freight because they leave on different days. In this example that keeps 27,800 out of your account while you keep reordering, which is more than one whole order costs.

Cash tied up = spend per day of sales × days the money is away, once for the goods and once for the freight. Goods: 25 × 8.00 = 200 a day, paid on average on day 21 and sold on average on day 150, so 129 days and 25,800. Freight: 25 × 1.60 = 40 a day, paid on day 100, so 50 days and 2,000. Together 27,800, which is 1.3 times the 21,600 a single order costs.

Day 21 is the two payment days averaged by size, 30 per cent on day 0 and 70 on day 30. Day 150 is the day the goods reach the shelf plus half the days one order covers, because the average unit sells halfway through.

The example holds no safety stock, which flatters it. A cushion is stock you have paid for and do not sell, so each cushion day adds a day of landed cost to the total. Our default is 60 days, for reasons on the days of stock page, and here it adds 14,400, taking the total to 42,200, just under two orders' worth.

Ordering smaller moves only the shelf part of those days. Halve the cover per order to 45 days and the total falls from 27,800 to 22,400, if freight per unit holds, which on a smaller shipment it may not. The 105 days from order to shelf belong to the factory and the boat. What the trade costs in price and freight is set out in the coverage trade-off.

How much should be in the bank on the day you order?

Enough to get through the burst. Between day 90 and day 120 you pay twice on the next order and once for this order's freight, 21,600 in 30 days. Counting only the cost share of each sale, your sales return 7,200 of that in the same month. The bank carries the other 14,400, about two thirds of an order.

The quiet stretch pays it back. From day 121 to day 179 nothing is due and sales refill the account at 240 a day of cost. Only the cost share counts, because the margin has rent and ads to pay. One month drains, two refill.

How tight the burst gets depends on your dates. A longer production run spreads the deposit and balance apart. A shorter crossing can land the freight invoice before the burst instead of inside it. Redo the table with your own terms before trusting it.

Why can't you just order less when cash is tight?

When a supplier minimum applies, it puts a floor under the deposit as well as the units. Shrinking the order is the obvious move when money is short, and a minimum takes exactly that move away. Suppose the factory's minimum is 3,000 and you need 2,250. The deposit rises from 5,400 to 7,200 before a single extra unit has sold.

The 750 extra units are 30 more days of sales paid for in advance, and they sit on the shelf adding to the days the money is away, as a cushion does. Whether the discount is worth that belongs to the minimum order quantity page.

What is the cash conversion cycle for an importer?

The textbook version is days inventory outstanding plus days sales outstanding minus days payable outstanding, as J.P. Morgan sets it out in guidance published 14 October 2025 and read on 11 September 2026. It assumes you owe your supplier while you hold the stock. Paying a deposit before production starts turns that assumption inside out.

Sales outstanding is the term that shrinks. If you take payment through Shopify Payments, Shopify's payout documentation, read on 11 September 2026, counts settlement in business days and says a bank may take "an additional 1-3 days" after the payout. So customers pay you within days, while the goods money in the example left 129 days before the average unit sold. That gap is the cycle worth managing.

Can Restocio tell you how much cash to hold?

Not as one figure, because it cannot see your bank account. What it shows is the payment side of the table above for your real orders, what is paid and what is still owed, in one place instead of across supplier emails.

Each supplier's terms carry a deposit percentage, and a purchase order uses it to show the deposit due and the balance due before shipment. Nothing is assumed paid. You record each payment on the day it leaves, and SKU Manager, under Stock valuation, lists every order still on the way with what has been paid and what is still to pay. That column is the unpaid supplier rows of the table above, for your own orders.

The figure labelled Cost to restock these totals each product's full recommended quantity times its registered purchase price, faster-freight top-ups included, and skips products with no price. If that price is the supplier's rather than a landed one, add the freight row yourself.

Here is what it does not do. Nothing in Restocio watches your bank balance. It will not warn you that a burst lands in a month you cannot cover, and it never trims or hides a recommended line to fit a budget. Ordering within a cash limit, an opt-in ceiling that would be off by default, is on our public roadmap under consideration beside a cash-flow view of purchasing. Neither is promised.

Common questions

How much cash do I need to import a container?

Enough to cover the month when two orders want paying at once, which on deposit-and-balance terms can be a whole order's landed cost inside 30 days. Your sales refill part of that during the same month. In the worked example on this page, the bank has to carry about two thirds of an order until the quieter weeks pay it back.

How do I work out how much cash my stock ties up?

Multiply what you spend per day of sales by the number of days that money is away from your account, and do it separately for the goods and the freight, because they are paid on different days. The days run from when you pay to when the average unit sells, which is the day the goods reach the shelf plus half the days one order covers.

Does safety stock tie up cash as well?

Yes, for as long as you keep it. Safety stock is paid for and deliberately not sold, so every day of cushion adds a full day of landed cost to the total. On the example product a 60 day cushion adds 14,400, taking the cash tied up from 27,800 to 42,200, just under two orders' worth.

Will ordering smaller free up cash?

Some, though less than it feels like it should. Halving how long each order lasts only halves the time units spend on the shelf. The months between paying the factory and the goods reaching you stay exactly where they were, and a supplier minimum can stop you ordering smaller in the first place.

Where can I see what I still owe on orders already placed?

In Restocio, open SKU Manager and then Stock valuation. It lists every order still on the way with its value, what has been paid and what is still to pay, built from the payments you record against each purchase order. It does not know your bank balance, so setting the two side by side is still your job.

Marcus Volsted

Co-founder, Restocio

Marcus co-founded Restocio and works on it daily with a Swedish importer who plans their purchasing in it every working day. Restocio is built in Sweden by two founders, one Swedish and one Danish, and Marcus is the Danish one. Why we are building it.