Inventory Management

Order Management manages the inventory levels of physical items in real time by tracking the following levels for each Item:

On hand (OH): the quantity of items physically in inventory.
On hold (HO): the quantity of items currently committed to open but unfulfilled sales orders.
Safety Stock (SS): the quantity of items reserved for in-store sales at a particular site.
Available: for non-backorderable items, the quantity on hand minus the quantity on hold and the safety stock (OH - HO - SS); for backorderable items with a limited number of backorder authorizations, the number of backorder authorizations minus the quantity on hold and the safety stock (BO Auth - HO - SS).
On allocation (On Alloc): the quantity of items currently allocated to open shipping orders. This number is included in the on hold quantity (a unit that is on allocation is also considered on hold).
Backorder authorizations (BO Auth): the number of items currently authorized to be backordered. This is only tracked for items that are defined as backorderable in a limited quantity. When backorder authorizations are being tracked, the on hand quantity is ignored.
On order (OO): the quantity of items currently on order for restocking.

The on hand, on hold, and on order quantities are tracked by site. You can manually override the on hand and on hold quantities in the Inventory Manager.

Order Management doesn't track inventory levels for items that are sourced as needed from third-party vendors via drop-ship/purchase order.

Each item is also assigned one of the following inventory statuses:

Available: the item isn't defined as backorderable or unique, and its on hand quantity is greater than the sum of its on hold quantity and its safety stock quantity. If the item is a master item, its status is available if any of its child items has a status of available. Items that are sourced from third-party vendors via drop-ship/purchase order are always in available status.
Available (B): the item is defined as backorderable (regardless of its on hand or on hold quantities) and is within its defined backorder limits, if applicable.
Available (U): the item is defined as unique and its available quantity is 1.
Out of stock: for non-backorderable items, the on hand quantity of the item is less than or equal to the sum of its on hold quantity and its safety stock quantity; for backorderable items with a limited number of backorder authorizations, the number of available authorizations has been reached.
Waiting approval: the item has been created in the system but isn't yet approved. This isn't affected by inventory levels.

Note: Order Management doesn't accept orders for items that are out of stock or that are waiting approval.

Backorders and Preorders

Items can be defined as backorderable, which lets orders be placed for them regardless of the actual on-hand quantity. Backorders can be unlimited or can be controlled via backorder authorizations. Setting the Backorderable flag on an item in the Administration module, with no further configuration, lets unlimited orders be placed for that item. Backorders can also be limited to a certain quantity or a certain time period, which must be managed using the Backorder Authorization Import Job.

Note: If you limit backorders to a certain quantity, then the on-hand quantity is ignored when determining item availability. For example, if an item is limited to 30 backorder authorizations, and 10 units are on hand, the system allows 30 orders to be placed for that item. The on-hand quantity is still decremented as items are shipped and incremented as items are received.

Preorders are managed via backorder authorizations rather than through a separate preorder status. To identify items that are available as preorders, you can create a custom tag or attribute and assign it to them.