AWRA Help Center

Open Inventory → Items, then the Reservations & backorders pill in the row at the top of the page. It has two tabs: Reserved (stock being held, and for whom) and Backorders (what customers are still waiting for).

What A Reservation Does

A reservation is a promise of a quantity of one item at one warehouse. Free stock is what is on the shelf there, less everything promised. Reserved stock cannot be sold at the till, transferred, checked out, returned to a supplier or used in a build by anyone other than the order it is held for. Each of those is refused with a message saying how much is free and how much is reserved.

Reservations are held per warehouse, not per bin or batch. The promise is “five of these from Nairobi”; your usual rotation still decides which five are picked.

From Sales Order To Delivery

1. Confirm the sales order. Each stock line is reserved at the order’s warehouse, as much as is free. Anything short is backordered.
2. Stock arrives. Any stock coming in — a receipt, a transfer, a return, a completed build — fills waiting backorders for that item, oldest first, as far as free stock goes.
3. Invoice from the order and check it out. As much of the order’s reservation as the checkout takes moves onto the checkout, so its approval can draw on the stock promised to it.
4. Approve the checkout and the reservation is fulfilled. Reject it and the stock goes back to the order line it came from.
5. Cancel the order and whatever it still holds is released.

The sales order shows, per line, how much is reserved and how much is backordered.

Holding Stock By Hand

For a customer collecting on Friday, or materials set aside for a job, choose Hold stock. Pick the item, warehouse and quantity, and optionally a customer, a note and an until date. Only free stock can be held. A hold with an until date is released automatically once that time passes (checked every hour); leave the date empty to hold it until someone releases it. If your account is set to one warehouse, holds are made there.

Release Or Cancel The Backorder

• Release gives the whole promise up — the held part and anything on backorder. The stock is free again and is offered first to whoever is waiting for that item. A sales order whose lines were released stays confirmed; use Reserve stock on the order to hold again.
• Cancel backorder stops waiting for what is not in stock and keeps what is already held: the customer takes the 6 you have and drops the 4 you do not.

Permissions

• View inventory — see reservations and backorders.
• Manage stock reservations — hold stock by hand, release, and cancel backorders.

Order reservations are created and released by confirming and cancelling sales orders; Reserve stock on an order needs the manage sales orders permission.

Common Mistakes

• “The till says only 2 are free but the shelf has 10.” The other 8 are promised. Check the Reserved tab to see to whom.
• Invoicing without the order. An invoice that was not raised from the sales order cannot draw on that order’s reservation. Raise it from the order.
• Reserving at the wrong warehouse. Stock is reserved at the order’s warehouse. Stock in another branch does not fill the backorder until it is transferred in.
• Forgotten holds. Give manual holds an until date so they do not block sales indefinitely.

Related

• Check-outs — the approval step that fulfils a reservation.
• Stock Transfers — moving stock to the warehouse that needs it.
• Bills of Materials & Assembly — builds respect reservations too.
• Stock reservations and backorders — the feature overview.