Backlogged Inventory Management

Background

With integrated order creation, non-admin end-users won’t see in-app errors when inventory reaches zero

Even worse, they may see an error in the integrated app with no idea how to remedy it. This will involve the company’s internal admin, the app’s support team, then finally us—which will undoubtedly create contempt through all levels.

Most importantly, we still want to capture those orders so we can move through inventory

Solution

Be able to create orders if the ‘In Stock’ amount is zero

The order is held in a ‘Draft’-like stage (similar to our ‘awaiting credit card' Draft stage) that doesn’t get sent to the 3PL or Quickbooks until the inventory is replenished

If an order goes through with 0 inventory ‘In Stock’, make that ‘In Stock’ integer -1 (and so on)

Create logic that makes the order status to ‘Backordered’ if there is 0 (or less) inventory

Make this a btn.danger style

Send an email to the contact in the product page (screenshot below) that the product is backordered

Add a status called ‘Unavailable’ to the status dropdown. This will allow the Admin or Super Admin remove the product from being able to be ordered, but not deleted.

If that’s the effect of the ‘No Stock’ status, just change the name from ‘No Stock’ to 'Unavailable