Backorders

A backorder records goods you owe a customer because you were out of stock. It keeps the promise visible until you can fulfil it.

Where

Sale Transactions → Backorders

Plan

Professional and above

Permission

Sales → Backorder

Setting

Pos → Allow Backorder must be on

How to take an order for goods you do not have

This is the normal route, and the one that works properly.

1. At the till, turn on the Allow backorder switch.
2. Set the Expected fulfilment date if you know it.
3. Add the items, including quantities beyond what is in stock.
4. Take payment as usual and click Complete.

The line is split automatically: what you have is sold and handed over immediately, and only the shortfall becomes a backorder. Money taken for the shortfall is held rather than counted as income.

Backorders sold on credit and invoices

If the sale leaves a balance owing and everything turned out to be in stock, an invoice is raised for the balance, just like a credit sale. If part of the order really is waiting for stock, no invoice is raised yet — the balance stays on the sale, and you collect it there.

How to hand the goods over when stock arrives

Allocation happens automatically when a delivery is booked in — the system walks open backorders by priority, then expected date, then age, and claims arriving stock for them. Handing over is manual.

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Backorders and watch the status: Open → Partially fulfilled → Fulfilled.
2. Open the row to see Allocated against Requested. If it says “Nothing allocated yet — no stock can be handed over.”, the goods have not arrived.
3. Open the row menu and click Fulfil.
4. Each line shows Requested / Allocated / Fulfilled / Outstanding and “Can hand over now”. The quantity is pre-filled with the most you may hand over.
5. Click Fulfil now.

You can do this in slices as stock trickles in. Revenue is recognised a slice at a time.

Raising one by hand

Backorders → New backorder raises one directly.

A backorder you raise by hand may be impossible to fulfil

Stock is only ever allocated to a backorder when a delivery arrives. There is no “allocate from what is on the shelf” button anywhere in the app.

So if you raise a backorder for something you already have in stock, nothing will ever allocate to it, and Fulfil will keep telling you no stock is available — forever. The only way out is to cancel it and sell the goods normally.

Raise backorders by hand only for goods you genuinely do not have and are waiting on.

Field	Notes
Location, customer	Both required
Source sale	Optional
Expected fulfilment date
Priority	1 to 5; 1 is the most urgent
Lines	Item, quantity, unit price

Serial and batch-tracked items cannot be backordered

If you try to oversell one, the sale is refused outright rather than quietly creating a backorder.

The three stages of stock

This is the part worth understanding, because the words look similar.

Stage	What it means	When
Committed	The demand is on record. No physical stock is held — it just stops anyone else promising the same shortage.	The moment the backorder is raised
Allocated	Stock has arrived and is physically set aside for this customer.	When a delivery is received — and only then
Fulfilled	The goods have actually left and gone to the customer.	When you press Fulfil

Allocated is not fulfilled. A backorder showing a large allocated quantity has not been given to the customer — the goods are just waiting. Handing them over is always a deliberate action.

When new stock arrives, it is claimed against backorders automatically, most urgent first, then by expected date, then oldest.

Stock already on your shelf is never allocated

Allocation only ever happens on arrival. If the goods are sitting on the shelf when the backorder is raised, nothing claims them, and there is no button anywhere in the app to allocate them by hand — the server can do it, but no screen asks.

Such a backorder stays at zero allocated for ever. Cancel it and sell the goods normally.

Fulfilling

Fulfil hands over what has been allocated. You cannot hand over more than has arrived.

At that point the portion being fulfilled is recognised as a sale, with its share of the tax, discount and cost. If the customer already paid, that held money is used first; if anything remains, it is collected in cash or charged to their account.

Loyalty points are earned once, when the whole backorder is complete.

Cancelling

Cancelling releases the commitment and returns any allocated-but-unfulfilled stock to free stock, reverses the held money and refunds any prepayment against the original sale.

A fully fulfilled backorder cannot be cancelled. A large cancellation may need manager approval first, in which case it parks as pending until approved.

Delete is only possible once a backorder is cancelled or fully fulfilled — deleting a live one would strand its stock commitment.

Things worth knowing

• Lines cannot be edited once anything has been allocated or fulfilled. Only the header — customer, dates, notes, priority — stays editable. To change quantities, cancel and raise a new one.
• Lower priority numbers are more urgent. A backorder created automatically from an oversold sale comes in at 3; one you raise by hand defaults much lower down the queue.
• Turning Pos → Allow Backorder off hides the screen but does not stop backorders being created elsewhere.

Related

• Layaway · Pickup later
• Selling at the till