Order status and reservations
Inventory Management supports partial and full invoicing, payments, shipping, and cancellations per order. As you manage an order through processing, invoicing, shipment, and potentially refunds, Commerce automatically enters or changes reservations to update the salable quantity for a stock (or sales channel) and the on-hand inventory quantity per source. You do not have to actively access or enter reservations. Completing actions to fulfill, cancel, or refund an order does it for you.
These reservations always adjust your salable quantity, with positive or negative amounts to increase or decrease quantities. The result is an update to your on-hand inventory and salable quantities for up-to-date product availability.
For specifics on orders and shipments, see Managing Orders and Shipments.
Order management options
Depending on inventory status and customer requests, you can update orders with partial payments and cancellations, partial shipments from multiple sources or for back orders, or credit memos to refund returned products.
Shipments
After invoicing orders, send partial or full shipments until you fulfill the entire order. Each shipment converts reservation, deducting the amount from the product quantity per source. Reservation compensations enter to update the salable quantity for your stock. If you send partial shipments, each shipment deducts that amount from your product quantity and reservations. Any unshipped product reservations remain in place until they are also shipped, so that your salable amount is current and to give you control over product inventory and support multiple source shipments and backorders.
Canceled orders
If a customer cancels their order before shipment (partial or in full), a new reservation is entered to return the inventory amount to the salable quantity. The reservations effectively cancel each other out, not deducting the quantity from any sources. Other customers can actively purchase those product quantities through the associated stocks and sales channels.
Refunded orders
If a customer requests a refund, issue the credit memo for the partial or full product amounts. When you receive the returned products, enter a credit memo to provide the funds and update product amounts. When selecting the Return to Stock option, Commerce adds quantities back to the products and sources that shipped the orders and reservation compensations to update salable quantities for the associated stock.
Order types
Simple orders begin with a shopping cart, continue to payment, and end with a satisfied delivery. In these orders, Inventory Management easily processes reservations against the availability (or salable quantity) in the cart and checkout, and deducts from the on-hand inventory at shipment.
A more complicated order may have partial cancellations, partial shipments, and refunds. In these situations, reservations affect the available inventory to add quantities for cancellations and refunds and decrease quantities when ordered and shipped.
Availability reservations and inventory changes occur based on the order status.
Status and reservations
The following tables detail order and credit memo status with reservation changes entered by Commerce to manage your inventory.
If declined, the reservation stays in place until the merchant decides to approve or cancel.
If canceled, the reservation compensation is entered to return full quantity back to the stock salable quantity.
Example complex order
Blake Sanders orders bikes and clothing for their family vacation and fun. They see some great sales on your Biking Adventures store with stock and sources spanning the United States, Canada, and Europe.
They buy two great park bikes for their small children, a BMX bike for their teenager, a nice mountain bike for themself, and a modern German cross-country bike for their spouse. The store had a sale on cute shirts, so they bought some for the whole family to match. See the list of vacation purchases below, the matching SKUs, and the reservations entered against the stock salable quantities.
They show their family what they found, but makes some changes. Before payment completes, they cancel two of the 33-BikeFun SKUs (children did not like them). This is a partial cancellation due to payment pending, so no credit memo needed. To update, Commerce adds back to the salable quantity stock for Canada. The order is paid, and all products ship, arriving in time for vacation. Commerce updates the salable quantity and source quantities for the shipping warehouses for the shipped products.
But the shirt didn’t quite fit their spouse. Blake requests a refund and sends back his shirt. The creation of the credit memo adds one 54-BikeLife shirt back to the Canada stock and shipping warehouse.
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Shipped products - With products purchased and shipped, Commerce updates the inventory. Reservation compensations convert to on-hand inventory quantity deductions from the shipped source. The available salable quantity updates for the stock.
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Canceled products - By canceling stock, Commerce removes the reservation for that product. Reservation compensation is entered to the stock level to add back salable quantities for the partial cancellation of two shirts. This does not affect the inventory quantity at the source level.
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Credit Memo/Refunded product - By returning stock, it must be added back to the quantities. When issuing the credit memo, you can select to return to stock. Commerce adds back inventory quantity to the shipped source for the product. Reservation compensations enter to clear any remaining reservations. The salable quantity recalculates against the updated quantity.
