Modern In Season OTB: Why It Belongs in the Merchandise Financial Plan — Not Excel

What Modern In‑Season OTB Actually Looks Like

In our last post, we explored the hidden cost of manual Open to Buy — time lost maintaining spreadsheets, decisions delayed by outdated visibility, and teams stretched thin doing work that adds little strategic value.

The response to that pain is often tactical:

• “We need a better OTB.”
• “We need a cleaner spreadsheet.”
• “We need faster updates.”
• “Let’s automate Excel.”

But those fixes miss the point…

The real issue isn’t that teams need a better OTB spreadsheet — it’s that OTB should not live in a spreadsheet at all. It belongs as a native output of an embedded, in‑season merchandise financial planning application.

That frustration is not isolated. In a survey of retail buyers across the U.S. and Canada, more than three-quarters reported using spreadsheets to plan buys — despite managing multi‑million‑dollar budgets. The problem isn’t dedication or experience; it’s that spreadsheets were never designed to support fast, continuous, in‑season decision making. As planning cycles accelerate, the gap between how Open to Buy is meant to function and how it’s managed continues to widen.

An Excel‑based OTB doesn’t fail because teams don’t understand it.

It fails because it’s often treated as a separate exercise; something to calculate, review, and debate — rather than what it actually is:

A by‑product of good in‑season financial planning.

OTB Is Not the Plan — It’s the Output

This distinction matters!

Planners do not manage the business by managing an OTB.

They manage the business by continuously re‑planning the season.

In season, planners focus on:

In season, planners focus on:

•  Actualizing sales and receipts
• Reforecasting based on trend
• Protecting KPIs:
  •  Margin
  •  Inventory turn
  • Sell‑through
  •  Weeks of cover

They are adjusting the merchandise financial plan to reflect reality, not managing to an OTB number.

OTB is the by-product of those decisions.

When the in‑season plan changes:

• Sales forecasts update
• Inventory positions shift
• Receipt needs are recalculated

And from that, OTB is generated to answer a very specific question for buyers,

Based on the latest approved plan:

•  is there a risk to address?
•  or opportunity to chase?

In a modern operating model, buyers aren’t reacting to OTB. They are being guided by it.

 Why Manual OTB Breaks This Relationship

In a manual environment, this natural relationship breaks down.

OTB typically:

• Lives in a separate spreadsheet
• Requires manual updates after plans change
•  Lags behind the latest forecast

It becomes disconnected, misaligned from the very decisions that create it. 

That’s when teams start:

• Re‑planning the business in one place
• Reviewing OTB in another
• Reconciling differences instead of acting on outcomes

The result is exactly what we described in Blog 3:

• Delayed decisions
• False precision
• Missed opportunity
• And control mechanisms that become constraints

The issue isn’t that OTB is wrong. It’s that it’s out of sync with the plan that created it.

 That disconnect shows up clearly in how buyers are forced to work. When surveyed, retail buyers reported spending an average of 13 hours per week on manual tasks—reconciling data, compiling reports, and maintaining spreadsheets—just to keep plans aligned. At the same time, buyers expressed only moderate confidence in the accuracy of their buys, reflecting the reality of managing critical financial decisions through disconnected, manually maintained tools.

This is why Excel-based OTB will always struggle — not because Excel is poorly designed, but because it sits outside the in‑season planning system that creates the numbers. Any tool that requires exporting, re‑keying, or reconciliation is, by definition, disconnected from real‑time in‑season decision making.

 The Future‑State OTB Operating Model

In a modern planning environment, OTB is not maintained.
It is continuously produced.

Here’s what that looks like in practice.

 1. One In‑Season Merchandise Financial Plan

There is a single, continuously updated in‑season plan that:

• Blends actuals with forecast
• Is versioned and approved
• Represents the agreed financial outlook for the season

This is where planners spend their time:

• Adjusting sales curves
• Responding to the trend
• Managing toward margin, turns, and sell‑through

OTB does not drive this work.
It reflects it.

 In daVinci, this plan acts as the system of record.
Sales, inventory, receipts, markdowns, and KPIs update together—ensuring OTB is always aligned to the latest approved view of the business.

 2. OTB Is Embedded — Not Calculated Separately

Open-to-Buy lives inside the merchandise financial system.

As planners update:

• Forecasted sales
• Ending inventory targets
• Markdown expectations

The system automatically recalculates:

• Remaining receipt capacity
• Committed vs uncommitted inventory
• Time‑phased spend availability

This is the fundamental difference between spreadsheet‑based OTB and an embedded in‑season application like daVinci MFP: OTB is not maintained as a model — it is continuously generated as a system output of the merchandise financial plan.

There is no export. No re‑keying. No reconciliation.

 This is where purpose‑built planning platforms like daVinci Retail fundamentally change the equation:
updates become continuous, visibility is immediate, and OTB reflects the current plan at all times.

OTB is always aligned to the latest approved plan, not last week’s snapshot.

 3. Buyers Receive Guidance, Not Homework

OTB provides direction, not interpretation!

In this model, OTB is not something buyers have to “figure out.”

They can clearly see:

• Where spending is constrained
• Where risk is building
• Where opportunity exists to chase

OTB becomes directional:

• Pull forward
• Push out
• Stay the course

daVinci provides buying direction without requiring buyers to interpret or rebuild financial logic.

This shifts control from policing to clarity — enabling faster, more confident action while there is still time to influence outcomes.

 4. Scenario Planning Without Spreadsheet Sprawl

A systematic OTB enables planners to test scenarios before they become commitments.

For example:

• What happens if we chase upside?
• What risk emerges if receipts slip?
• How much OTB opens if markdowns accelerate?

In daVinci, scenarios are modeled:

• Without breaking the core plan
• With immediate visibility into OTB impact
• With full traceability and approval control

That allows teams to act proactively — not defensively.

 5. Visibility, Governance, and Speed Coexist

The biggest misconception is that automation reduces control.

It strengthens it.

A modern OTB model:

• Preserves approval workflows
• Maintains version history
• Provides shared visibility across teams

Everyone operates from the same numbers, derived from the same plan, at the same time — enabling faster decisions without sacrificing discipline.

 daVinci’s Real Benefit Isn’t Efficiency — It’s Decision Quality

Yes, systematic OTB reduces manual effort. Yes, it lowers risk. Yes, it frees planners from spreadsheet maintenance.

But the greatest benefit is this:

Decisions happen closer to the moment of opportunity.

When OTB is:

• Current
• Trusted
• Embedded

Teams stop debating the numbers and start debating the actions.

That’s the point Open-to-Buy was always meant to enable.

 Closing Thought

OTB was never intended to be a standalone spreadsheet exercise.

It was designed to be a financial guardrail — dynamically adjusting as the season unfolds, translating planning decisions into buying guidance.

As long as OTB lives in Excel, it will remain reactive, delayed, and debated. Any tool that requires exporting, re‑keying, or reconciliation is, by definition, disconnected from real‑time in‑season decision making.

When OTB is embedded as a native output of the merchandise financial planning system — as it is in daVinci MFP — it becomes what it was always meant to be:

• Current
• Trusted
• Continuously aligned to the latest approved plan

In that model, teams stop debating the numbers and start debating the actions.

That is the real promise of modern Open to Buy: a clear, timely signal that helps the business balance opportunity and risk — in-season, in real time, and in alignment with financial goals.