Automated backorder process for IQstore
Backorder automation enables printIQ to check availability of the items on the sales order and, depending on the options set, can split out the unavailable items or set the order status to 'On Backorder’.
The backorder automation works in a two-stage process, the first stage occurring on order acceptance and the second during the scheduled subsequent stock checks.
The scheduled check looks at all sales orders with a status of backorder and checks for product availability for those orders.
This setting determines the backorder behaviour when a sales order is accepted:
This setting can only be accessed by IQ support staff
None
No automatic backorder functionality is enabled. The scheduled check does not run.
Place Entire Order on Backorder
This option will not create backorders. It simply updates the status of the new order to On Backorder:
- On Acceptance
- Updates the order status to On Backorder if any item cannot be fulfilled.
- Scheduled Check
- Updates order status from On Backorder to Confirmed or Paid once all items can be fulfilled.
All Orders
This option will create as many backorders as needed as products becomes available.
- On Acceptance
- Splits off any items that cannot be fulfilled to a new backorder.
- Scheduled Check
- Checks backorders.
- Splits any items that can’t be fulfilled onto a different sales order and puts that order on backorder. This can split as many times as required. For example; 2 items go to On Backorder, 1 item can be fulfilled so the item that cannot be fulfilled is put onto a different sales order.
- If all items on a backorder can be fulfilled, the status is updated to Confirmed or Paid.
On Acceptance
This option will create a maximum of one backorder during acceptance of the order by the user. If it creates a backorder, the status of that backorder is not updated by the scheduled check until all products on that backorder can be fulfilled:
- On Acceptance
- Splits off any items that cannot be fulfilled to a new backorder.
- Scheduled Check
- Checks all orders with the status On Backorder.
- Updates order status from On Backorder to Confirmed or Paid once all items can be fulfilled.
If split option ‘All Orders’ or ‘On Acceptance’ is set, after going through the checkout process and landing on the Orders screen, any items that have been placed on backorder appear for the user under <order_number>-001.
When orders are split and there is just one delivery, the delivery details are copied to the new backorder and pricing is set to $0. If there were multiple deliveries on the parent order, the delivery details are removed from the backorder and will need to be setup manually.
If the automation behaviour is set to ‘Place entire order on backorder’, only the orders’ status is updated. No separate backorder is created.
Order Acceptance
When a sales order is accepted, and one of the backorder actions is selected in the setting above, the system checks for availability of the store items in inventory.
If the setting is ‘Place entire order on backorder’ and there is a shortfall in available stock, the order status is updated to ‘On Backorder’.
If the setting is either ‘All Orders’ or ‘On Acceptance’, any items that cannot be fulfilled are moved onto a backorder, leaving the items that can be picked on the ‘Confirmed’ or ‘Paid’ order. This occurs on acceptance of the order.
Backorder Check
When the backorder check runs at its set frequency, all products on all backorders are checked for ‘in-stock’ availability.
If the setting is ‘All Orders’, products that have enough on hand will be split from remaining products which will be moved to a backorder.
If the setting is ‘Place entire order on backorder’ or ‘On Acceptance’, no further backorders are created from existing backorders.
If an existing backorder can be fulfilled in its entirety, the status of that order will be updated to Confirmed or Paid.
This setting can only be accessed by IQ support staff
If Daily is used, the backorder check process requires the Sales Order Automatic Backorder Behaviour Frequency Daily Time of Day to be set to a single value (if it is to run once daily) or multiple values between 0 (midnight) and 23 (11pm). This setting does not allow spaces or alphabetic characters.
In the following example, the check will run at 6am, 9am, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 6pm and 8pm:
This setting can only be accessed by IQ support staff
There is a ‘Backorder Check’ button on the IQStore Board, allowing the user to run the check manually at any time during the day as required.
Access to this function is controlled by the setting Manual Backorder Check – Required Roles configured on the below setting:
This setting can only be accessed by IQ support staff
Using with Customer Setting ‘Place All Sales Orders On Hold’ By Default
This setting is sometimes used to ‘group’ a customers’ orders together and process them in batches at regular intervals. For example, weekly or monthly and dispatch them all together.
When this customer setting in enabled, the sales orders created for this customer are immediately placed ‘On Hold’ and do not go through the backorder check process.
When the ‘On Hold’ orders are to be processed, they must first be set to a status of On Backorder, irrespective of the current stocks’ availability.
This is done on the Sales Orders Board by filtering for the customers ‘On Hold’ (1) orders and selecting all orders (2) and changing the status (3) to ‘On Backorder’ (4):
When the ‘Backorder Check’ is next run, all items in the orders updated above will be checked and if available the order status will be updated to ‘Confirmed’.
Scheduled Backorder Check Process
The scheduled backorder check is run when the setting is anything but ‘None’.
It sums the quantity of all products on backorder. It then checks the quantity on hand for each product, including any inwards goods, adjustments or item transfer transactions.
Both expired stocks and locations are ignored in the QoH calculations.
If the Sales Order Automatic Backorder Behaviour is set to ‘All Orders’, commencing with the earliest orders, the order status is updated to confirmed or paid and any remaining products are split off into the next level of backorders.
If the Sales Order Automatic Backorder Behaviour setting is either ‘Place entire order on backorder’ or ‘On Acceptance’, only backorders that can be completely fulfilled will be updated to a status of Confirmed or Paid.
All of the above settings are expected to be set once and not changed after that.
Enabling the automated backorder behaviour will have an immediate impact when the scheduled backorder check runs.
Existing orders will be checked and split into backorders
if required.
Both ‘Place entire order on backorder’ or ‘On Acceptance’ settings will only update orders from Backorder to Confirmed or Paid. Neither setting processes the orders down to the product level, so no further backorder splits will occur. However, if an existing backordered sales order can be fulfilled, it’s status will be updated.
Any changes to the settings ‘SO Automatic Backorder Behaviour Frequency’ or ‘SO Automatic Backorder Behaviour Frequency Time of Day’ will require a site release or restart.
The automated job is scheduled through ‘Hangfire’ which only reads the frequency configuration once when the site is started.
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