Backorders

Updated 6 months ago

The Backorder feature is only available if the BackOrderReCalculateService is running on your server; please contact SellerCloud Support to confirm that this service is installed.

In addition, Enable BackOrder Workflow must be selected in Client Settings to use this feature. Read how to configure Backorder-related Client Settings later in this topic.

Introducing the Backorder feature

SellerCloud can mark an order with a BackOrder status when a customer orders an item for which you have no availability.

When this happens, the backordered quantity will appear in the Order Details' BackOrderQty column and the order is marked as BackOrder in the Order Status bar.

When inventory does become available, the BackOrder Qty is adjusted and the Order Status is updated accordingly. Note that inventory is applied chronologically to orders, with quantity first becoming available to older orders.

If you manually change the inventory of an item, you can easily force the recalculation of one or more Backorders instead of reallocating inventory or waiting for the BackOrderReCalculateService to rerun: On the Manage Orders page > select orders > Action Menu > Recalculate Backorders > Go.

This topic explains several ways to help you effectively manage your Backorders, including:

To find your Backorders:

  1. Open Manage Orders > Advanced Search > BackOrder dropdown field > choose Full BackOrder, Partial BackOrder, or Full or Partial BackOrder > Search.

  2. Open a Backorder from the Manage Orders page of results:



The following order-related actions will have an impact on an order's Backorder status. When any of these occur, the Backorder status and quantity is immediately determined on related orders, and other quantity adjustments will update the Backorder status periodically, throughout the day:

  • An order is split
  • An order has items added to it  
  • Inventory becomes available though a PO Receive

Reallocating the Backorder quantities

To be able to ship an order immediately, there may be times when you want to reallocate an order's backordered item to fill the backorder quantity on another order. If so, you can edit the orders' Backorder quantities and change their Backorder statuses. Here's how:

  1. On the Manage Orders page - select the Backorder > Action Menu > Mark BackOrder or Mark Not BackOrder > Go.
  2. There are 2 places to edit an order's Backorder quantity:
    1. On the Order Details page - click Action Menu > Manage Backorder Reallocation > Go; or
    2. On the Manage Orders page > select the Backorder > Action Menu > Manage Backorder Reallocation > Go
  3. On the BackOrder Reallocation page > revise the Backorder Qty field > Update.

Your changes will be overwritten when the BackOrderReCalculateService re-runs, based on quantity available and Backorder-related Client Settings.

Configuring ShipBridge for Backorders

ShipBridge has 2 convenient settings that help control Backorders:

  • Menu > Customize Interface > GUI > Auto move orders with backorder items to the attention tab - This moves all Backorders to ShipBridge's Requires Attention tab instead of the Unshipped tab, so they are easily discernible as orders that are not ready to ship.

  • Menu > Options > Scan and Ship > Ignore backorder/requires attention orders - This hides all Backorders from ShipBridge's Scan and Ship tab when entering or scanning those orders, so you will not try to ship a Backorder when you have no item(s) available in the warehouse.

Configuring the Client Settings for Backorders

There are a number of Client Settings that affect SellerCloud's calculation and appearance of Backorders:

CLIENT SETTING

DESCRIPTION

Enable BackOrder Workflow

(required)

  • Must be selected for the Backorder feature to work
  • Shows BackOrder Qty and Avail Qty on the expanded Manage Orders grid

*Enabling this will deselect the setting Hide BackOrder Column in Manage Orders. It is assumed you want to see the BackOrder icon on the Manage Orders page; however, you can override this behavior by selecting it.

Hide BackOrder Column in Manage Orders 

  • Hides the BackOrder icon on the expanded Manage Orders grid and the BackOrderQty column on the Order Details page. 

*Selecting Enable BackOrder Workflow automatically deselects this setting

Stop Marking Orders as BackOrder while Creating Orders

(enabled by default)

  • Orders will not be marked with a BackOrder status when created
  • Hides the BackOrder icon on the Manage Orders grid and the BackOrderQty column on the Order Detail page

Consider ReplacementSKU Qty in BackOrder Calculation 

  • If an item is out of stock, but its replacement SKU has stock, the order will not be marked as a Backorder

Don't consider Dropship WH Qty as Available Qty for BackOrder calculation 

(enabled by default)

  • Excludes the quantity in a Dropship type warehouse from the Backorder calculation
  • You can use this when importing inventory from a vendor into a dropship type warehouse and you don't want this inventory to be considered as available. Instead, items are actually ordered on a PO, received, and shipped to the customer.

Include Authorized Orders In BackOrder Calculation 

(enabled by default)

  • Orders with a Payment Status of Authorized are considered for calculating Backorders

Include Unpaid Orders In BackOrder Calculation

(enabled by default)

  • Orders with a Payment Status of Unpaid are considered for calculating Backorders

Use Warehouse-Based Backorder Calculation 

  • Calculates Backorder per product, based on the Ship To warehouse set on the order. Note:This will not do the calculation for FBA, Interim, or Untested warehouse types. 

Update BackOrder status on Order Status Change 

(enabled by default)

  • Whenever the Order Status is changed to any value, the Backorder quantity is automatically recalculated

Use Payment Date Instead of Order Creation in Backorder Calculation

  • Payment Date, not Order Date, will be used in Backorder calculations; meaning, paid Backorders will have priority over Backorders without payment

Prioritize Fully-Shippable Orders in Backorder Calculation

  • This setting is useful when dealing with multiple Backorders with different quantities:
    • It will allocate available quantities to the order with the minimum required quantity that can be fulfilled, when possible
    • For example, an order for 40 items with 10 on hand and a second order for 10 comes in later. This setting will allocate quantity to the second order instead of reserving it for the first. It will try to do this for the oldest orders first. 

Include OnHold Orders In BackOrder Calculation 

  • Orders with an Order Status of OnHold will be included in Backorder calculations

Enable per OrderItem Based BackOrder in PickList 

Related options for managing Backorders

When an order comes in for an out-of-stock item, SellerCloud offers several other options for dealing with Backorders:

  1. Settings > choose Email Templates. (You can also go to Company Settings > Toolbox > Email Settings > Email Templates.)
  2. Click Add New Template and create an email for an order cancellation when an item is out of stock > Save Template.
  3. Company Settings > Toolbox > Email Settings > click Email Template Assignment. Here, you assign a specific email to send when encountering a given property.
  4. Scroll down to OutOfStockInventoryNotice and choose your order cancellation template > Update Grid. This email will be sent whenever an order is marked as a BackOrder.

How did we do?