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11.4.9 Merchandise: Expected Inventory

Expected inventory is received from a vendor and typically is paid for with a purchase order. WebSphere Commerce tracks expected inventory with expected inventory records, and it enables you to record an external identifier, usually a purchase order number from an external system. In this way, you can keep track of the inventory you have ordered, as well as what has and has not arrived. Expected inventory details are the specifics about products in an expected inventory record, such as the fulfillment center expecting the product, the expected receipt date, quantity expected, and comments.

An expected inventory record cannot be deleted after inventory has been received against it, and expected inventory details cannot be changed or deleted after any of that inventory has been received.

When orders are placed for inventory that is available in a fulfillment center, the Order Management subsystem allocates inventory to those orders. Allocating inventory to an order makes it unavailable to the order management system. If the order is canceled, the inventory becomes available again.

If an order is placed for inventory that is not available, a backorder can be created. If there is expected inventory that could be used to fulfill the backorder, then the expected inventory is allocated to the backorder and the customer can be given an expected ship date.

Before inventory for a product can be received, the product must be defined in the WebSphere Commerce system, regardless of whether the inventory receipt is expected or ad hoc.

Note: Vendors must be created before the store can create any expected inventory records.

The available functions from this page are detailed in the following sections.


Redbooks
ibm.com/redbooks


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