Line planning software for fashion brands

The line plan is where a season starts: how many styles, in which categories, at what prices and in what quantities. In many brands it lives in a spreadsheet that is out of date the day after the range meeting. This page covers what line planning software should do and what to check before you choose one.

#What a line plan holds

A useful line plan answers the same questions all season:

• Which styles are in the collection, and in which category
• The target price, wholesale price and retail price of each style
• How many units are planned, per colour and size
• What the collection is allowed to cost, and what it will bring in
• Where each style stands, and who owns the next step

The line plan guide explains the columns and how a brand builds one for a season.

#Why a spreadsheet line plan breaks

The line plan is copied into the costing sheet, the sample tracker and the order sheet. Each copy starts to drift. A style is dropped in one file and still counted in another. The budget is checked once in the range meeting and not again until the orders go out.

Line planning software fixes this by making the plan the place where the work happens, so costs, samples and orders come from the same rows.

#What to look for

• One plan per collection that the whole team edits, with categories and pictures.
• Prices next to cost. The target price beside the live unit cost, with wholesale and retail prices on the same row.
• Planned units per colour and size, so the budget and the orders use the same numbers.
• A budget that updates. Spend, projected revenue and profit change as styles are added, costed or dropped.
• Status and owners. You can see which styles are late and whose turn it is.
• Orders from the plan. Purchase orders created from planned units, without retyping.

#How Tr3e does line planning

In Tr3e the collection is the line plan. Every product has its category, colours, sizes, Target Price, RRP, WSP and planned units, and its Unit cost comes from its materials and manufacturing. The collection's side panel shows Budget, Budget used, Projected revenue and Profit, and they update as you work. A dropped product stops counting towards the budget.

Each product moves through the Critical Path: eight milestones from line plan to production handover, dated back from the PO Ready date. The collection's Critical Path view shows every product's milestones in one table, and My products shows the ones whose next step is yours. When the plan is ready, purchase orders are written from the planned units in the supplier's own currency.

You can switch the collection between a list and a grid with pictures, which is handy for range reviews.

#Questions

What is line planning in fashion? Deciding before the season what the collection will contain: the number of styles per category, their price points, planned quantities and the budget. It turns the creative direction into something the team can cost, sample and order.

Can I import my current line plan? Most teams start from a spreadsheet export of their styles and materials. See Get started with Tr3e.

Who in the team uses the line plan? Everyone who runs the season: the founder or head of design for the range, product developers for cost and samples, and production for orders. In Tr3e viewers are free, so the wider team can follow along.

#Next

• How to build a line plan for a fashion collection
• The Critical Path
• Fashion costing software: what to look for
• Purchase order software for fashion brands