Inventory Units — Reservations

This guide explains how reservations work on Inventory Units, and what the Inventory Unit page buttons do when reserved stock looks “stuck”.

Key fields (quick glossary)

• On-hand: physical stock in this location.
• Reserved: stock held for open orders.
• Available: what can be picked now (roughly: on-hand minus reserved).

Button: “Show orders holding reservation”

Use this when Reserved is non-zero and you need to see which orders are holding it.

What you’ll see:

• A list of orders holding reservation on this Inventory Unit.
• Each row shows a net reserved quantity per order.

How the system calculates “net reserved” (high level):

• Reservation increases happen when stock is allocated or backordered for an order.
• Reservation decreases happen when stock is released or shipped.
• For serialised / on-pick items, the modal also includes open serial allocations (because serial allocations can represent a current reservation).

If an order looks shipped/complete but still shows a positive reserved quantity, that’s usually a stale reservation.

Button: “Release shipped reservations”

Use this when the Inventory Unit has reservations held by orders that are already shipped/fulfilled.

When this button appears:

• ParcelPilot only shows this shortcut if it detects at least one reserving order that either:
  • has one or more shipments, or
  • is in a shipped/fulfilled-style status (e.g. shipped, delivered, fulfilled, in_transit).

What it does:

• Creates a reservation-release entry for each affected order.
• Reduces the Inventory Unit’s stored Reserved quantity accordingly.
• Does not change physical stock (on-hand stays the same).

Safe workflow:

1. Click Show orders holding reservation.
2. Confirm the reserving orders are genuinely shipped/complete.
3. Click Release shipped reservations.

If the button is not visible but you still think something is wrong:

• Use Show orders holding reservation to identify the specific order(s), then handle the reservation on the Order itself.
• See Reserved Stock for the order-level tools and decision guide.

Transfers: “Move reservations with stock”

When transferring stock, the Move reservations with stock toggle controls whether reservations follow the stock to the destination location.

• OFF: transfer is limited by Available (on-hand minus reserved).
  • Use for normal relocations/tidy-ups.
• ON: transfer can move up to On-hand, and reservations move with the stock.
  • Use for replenishment-style moves (bulk → pickface) where reserved stock needs to become pickable in the destination.

Full transfer workflow and examples:

• Inventory Units — Transfer Stock

Serialised / “on-pick” reservation behaviour

For serialised items (and items using an on-pick allocation strategy), reservations are typically created when the serial is allocated during picking/scanning.

Practical implications:

• You may see Reserved = 0 on an Inventory Unit until a serial is actually allocated.
• The Show orders holding reservation modal can include open serial allocations, because that represents the current “held” unit for an order.
• This avoids double-counting reservations (reserving at order import and again at serial allocation time).