Automated and Batch Allocation

Allocation is the process in Orderwave that deducts inventory units/quantities for pending orders. There are two ways to allocate inventory in Orderwave:

1. Automatic allocation (default)
2. Batch allocation

Automatic allocation

By default, when an order is cleared to ship, either by a successful payment transaction (like an Auth or Sale), or by a user manually clearing the items to ship, Orderwave will automatically deduct the quantities from inventory for those shipments and allocate them to the order.

Batch allocation

If you do not want Orderwave to automatically deduct inventory quantities when shipments/items are cleared to ship, you can turn on batch allocation. This will prevent automated allocation, and allocation will occur at a predefined schedule in the automated task called ALLOCATION.

To turn on batch allocation, navigate to Admin > Shipment Settings. Click the ✏ button to edit the settings, and toggle on Batch Allocation.

Allocation on backorders

All of the items in a given shipment must have sufficient quantity to deduct at the time of allocation in order for allocation to occur. If even one item on a shipment is backordered, the entire shipment will not be allocated, and will instead be added to the BACKORDER queue, where it will wait for new inventory to be received. The automated task MAINTAIN-BACKORDERS is responsible for comparing current inventory quantities to backorders, and removing the queue. The ALLOCATION automated task performs batch allocation on those orders once inventory is available.