Every merchandise item you sell has a stock count for each location that carries it. When a customer places, cancels, or returns an order, you do not need to enter a separate stock change. Orders & Inventory updates the count for you as soon as the order affects stock. This article explains which count changes, how much it changes, and why.
The Counts a Stock Record Tracks
A stock record tracks several counts for an item at a location. A single order can move more than one count at the same time:
- On hand — the physical quantity in that location, whether or not it is already promised to someone.
- Available — the part of on hand stock that is still free to sell.
- Committed — the part of on hand stock that is promised to a placed order but has not shipped yet.
- Backordered — the quantity on an order line that could not be committed because there was not enough available stock.
- Defective — returned quantity that has been set aside as unsellable.
- Reserved — stock held aside from available, separately from an order's commitment.
On hand changes only when goods physically move in or out of a location. A commitment does not change on hand because the goods stay on the shelf until they ship.
What Happens When You Place an Order
When you place an order for an item that tracks inventory, Orders & Inventory tries to commit stock to each order line at the chosen location. Available goes down and committed goes up by the same quantity, while on hand stays the same. For example, if a location has 10 available and 0 committed, an order for 3 units leaves that location with 7 available and 3 committed.
If there is not enough available stock for an order line, and the item allows backorders, Orders & Inventory records the quantity it could not commit as backordered. A backordered quantity does not change available, committed, or on hand by itself. It is a separate count that shows how much of the line is still owed. When new stock later comes in at that location, Orders & Inventory fills backordered quantities before new orders and moves that quantity into committed.
Tip
If an item you know shipped still shows as backordered, check the order of events. An order placed before replenishment stock was received creates a backorder, and receiving the purchase order resolves it. A backordered line does not clear itself just because the order later ships from a different batch. If the backordered quantity still does not make sense after you check the order of events, it may be a defect rather than something you can fix yourself. There is no console action you can use to reset a stuck backordered quantity to zero, so contact Rhythm support.
What Happens When an Order Ships
When an order ships, Orders & Inventory reduces the units at the location the shipment came from. Committed and on hand both go down by the shipped quantity. Available does not change at this step because those units already left available when the order was placed. Continuing the earlier example, shipping the 3 committed units leaves that location with 7 on hand and 0 committed, while available stays at 7.
If you ship fewer units than the order committed, only the shipped quantity clears. The unshipped remainder stays committed until it ships or the line is cancelled. If an item still shows as committed and you are not sure why, open the related order and compare its committed quantity with what has shipped. A partly shipped order is the most common explanation.
Tip
If committed quantities look wrong and affect your ability to purchase or receive stock, ship or fulfill the affected orders first so those commitments can clear through the normal process. If a negative balance remains after that, receiving inventory through a purchase order can bring it back to zero.
What Happens When an Order Is Cancelled, Returned, or Refused
When you cancel a line before it ships, Orders & Inventory releases the quantity that line had committed. The counts move in reverse: committed goes down and available goes up. See Cancel Order Lines for how to cancel a line and what else a cancellation affects.
When shipped goods are returned, they go back into stock unless the return is marked defective:
- A return not marked defective raises both on hand and available by the returned quantity. Returned stock does not automatically fill waiting backorders. It becomes ordinary available stock, just like any other receipt.
- A return marked defective raises only the defective count. On hand and available do not change, so a defective return never becomes sellable again automatically. Orders & Inventory does not later reduce a defective count, so it only accumulates unless your account handles written-off stock outside Orders & Inventory. To remove obsolete merchandise from your books and reflect the loss, you can create an order for the remaining quantity and write it off; the write-off can be posted to an account you choose.
Tip
Watch for a committed number that looks like digits were appended instead of added, such as 50 becoming 502 instead of 52 after a small change. That pattern points to a calculation problem, not a stock count you should try to correct yourself. Contact Rhythm support instead of adjusting the count.
Why Every Movement Points Back to an Order
Every stock change caused by an order, including a commitment, backorder, fulfillment, or return, is recorded with a reference to the order and order line that caused it. That is why a stock movement history entry shows which order moved a count. It is also why a cancellation or return can undo the right amount: Orders & Inventory uses the movements tied to that order line instead of adjusting stock by guesswork.
If test orders are removed later, such as through a data import wipe, the stock movements they caused are not necessarily removed with them. That can leave committed or on-order quantities tied to an order that no longer exists, with no usable source order to explain them. If you replace a product to reset its inventory, such as by creating a new product and making the old one inactive, there is no way to transfer the old product's order history to the new one. Prior orders stay linked to the inactive product, while the new product starts clean.
If committed inventory no longer matches the order-linked movements you can find, or the actual stock on your shelf, that mismatch may need correction on the back end. Contact Rhythm support rather than trying to reconcile it yourself.
Reserved Stock Is a Separate Idea
A stock record can also hold a reserved quantity, which lowers available and raises reserved the same way a commitment lowers available and raises committed. Reserved stock is separate from a commitment. A commitment is always tied to a specific order line, while a reservation is not part of the order flow described in this article. If you see a reserved count on an item, it did not come from a customer placing an order.
None of This Requires a Manual Movement
Everything in this article happens as part of order, shipment, cancellation, and return processing. Nobody in your office needs to open a stock record and enter a movement for it to happen. A physical count correction, a transfer between locations, or receiving a purchase order is a separate movement entered by staff. This article covers only the automatic movements an order causes on its own.
Because committed and backordered quantities are meant to move only through this automatic processing, you cannot edit a committed quantity directly from the Inventory page. If a committed or backordered quantity gets stuck in the wrong state, there is currently no console action you can use to clear it yourself. Contact Rhythm support so it can be reset.