A guide to managing quantity via Flxpoint's committed stock feature.

Recommended for: Users utilizing 3rd parties for distribution fulfillment

Overview

Committed stock allows for the closest thing to live inventory quantity possible when using 3rd parties for distribution.

When committed stock is enabled, and you receive new orders, the Committed Quantity on the generated fulfillment request/fulfillment orders will be decremented from the In Stock Quantity.

The result is when the next sync to the channel happens only Available Quantity that can be committed will show as available on your channel, helping to prevent overselling.

Hover Over Available Quantity to See Committed Stock Breakdown

Lifecycle of Committed Stock

There are a few events that trigger committed stock to be created, released, and cancelled:

• Stock is committed after a fulfillment request has been generated.
• Integrate Inventory quantities from an external source & release committed stock after a quantity update
• Integrate Inventory quantities from an external source & release committed stock after a shipment import is followed by a quantity update
• Manage Inventory quantities within Flxpoint & release committed stock after shipment import (no external quantity change needed) **Only available for Internal Warehouse sources
• Committed stock can only be canceled by cancelling the fulfillment request that trigger the creation of committed stock.

Lifecycle of Committed Stock Example
Currently, SKU 123 has a quantity of 100. A few minutes later you receive an order for 2 units of SKU 123. After generating the fulfillment request you check your inventory levels for the SKU and find:
- In Stock Quantity = 100
- Committed Quantity = 2
- Available Quantity = 98

After the next sync to the channel completes SKU 123 will have quantity set to the Available Quantity of 98.

Later, Get Inventory [Primary] finishes syncing and the quantity updates from 100 to 95, since there has not been a shipment added to the order, the new inventory levels are:
- In Stock Quantity = 95
- Committed Quantity = 2
- Available Quantity = 93

The next day, the source provides the shipment associated with the order. The committed stock is now eligible to be released.
Later, Get Inventory [Primary] finishes syncing and quantity updates from 95 to 93, since the committed stock is released and the source's quantity is now different from the In Stock Quantity.
- In Stock Quantity = 93
- Committed Quantity = 0
- Available Quantity = 93

Instructions & Tutorial

Enable/Disable Committed Stock

To begin leveraging committed stock, you must enable the feature for a specific source by going to the source's settings and opting in.

Committed Stock Configuration
- Integrate Inventory quantities from an external source & release committed stock after a quantity update
   - Select for sources that receive inventory quantities from an external source integration where your next sync is expected to be the actual quantity.

- Integrate Inventory quantities from an external source & release committed stock after a shipment import followed by a quantity update
   - Select for sources that receive inventory quantities from an external source integration when you can only safely assume actual quantity from the source once inventory is updated and shipment is uploaded.

- Manage Inventory quantities within Flxpoint & release committed stock after shipment import (no external quantity change needed)
   - Only available for Internal Warehouse sources

Once enabled, any new fulfillment requests generated for that source will start committing. This will not retroactively commit stock for fulfillment requests that have already been created.

If you opt out by disabling, new fulfillment requests generated for that source will no longer be committed. This will not wipe out the committed stock that has already been allocated.

When Not To Use Committed Stock
There are two primary situations where committed stock should not be used:
- Source doesn't update quantity
- Source is already tracking committed stock (often seen with 3PLs)

If your source is already keeping track of committed stock, then enabling it in Flxpoint would cause duplicate commits and result in inaccurate available quantity being synced to your channel.

When source's don't update quantity and are using a fixed value, then enabling it in Flxpoint will cause inventory to only be depleted, never releasing the committed stock

Viewing Committed Stock

As mentioned above, committed stock is configured at the source level, so when viewing committed stock it is best viewed from a source variant. Hover over the source variant's available quantity and you'll see:

• In Stock Quantity
• Committed Quantity
• Available Quantity

When viewing fulfillment requests/fulfillment orders with committed stock, you will see the committed amount in the Fulfillment details

Also, when viewing a product variant, you will only see In Stock Quantity and Committed Quantity under the section Source Links instead of at the top of the screen, since product variant pricing and quantity can be an aggregate of multiple source inventory variants.