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Backorders involve processing sales that do not have enough stock on hand to be fulfilled. In this case, new stock is ordered from your suppliers to complete the order. Backordering is only available for products which have an assigned supplier. 


NOTE: If your sales process is set to automatic fulfillment, backordered items will NOT trigger the fulfillment process automatically. Sale orders must be manually authorised once the backordered items have been received.


Prerequisites


Table of Contents


Backorder permissions

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DEAR offers fine-grained control over user permissions by going to Settings → Users and Roles. See Managing Users and Roles and User permissions explained for help setting user permissions. 


Users will need the Reorder Stock permission, in the Purchase section, in order to view or use the backorder feature. 

(Read-only) View backorder and reorder items. (Full Access) Create purchase orders for backorder items. 



Adding suppliers for a product

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To use the backorder function, you need to add suppliers for the products to be backordered. The Reorder Backorder page will show a warning to inform you which products are missing a supplier. Click the product name to be taken to the product details page and add the supplier. 

 

To attach one or more suppliers to a product:

  1. Navigate to Inventory → Products.
  2. Select the product you wish to add a supplier to.
  3. Click the Suppliers tab.
  4. Click or Add more items.
  5. Choose a supplier from the dropdown list.
  6. Enter the Supplier SKU, Product Name and Product URL if desired.
  7. Enter the product Fixed Price for that supplier if applicable. 
  8. Save your changes. 


Initiating backorders and split orders

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Sales Orders can be authorised even if there is not enough inventory in stock to fulfil them. In this case, an error message will be displayed, and you will be prompted to choose either Split Order or Backorder. Split Order will only appear as an option if there is enough inventory to partially fulfill the order. There is also the option to create a purchase order (from a single supplier) for the out of stock products, where any remaining sale order products can still be backordered. 


Backorders will add the outstanding items from the sale to the Reorder Backordered list in DEAR so a PO can be generated for them. When the required quantity of items is back in stock, the sale order can be fulfilled. 


Split Orders will cause a new Sale Order to be automatically generated. The original Sale Order will be amended, so the item quantity reflects the amount in stock. This authorised Sale Order can be fulfilled and invoiced immediately. A second authorised Sale Order with the remaining item quantity will be created. This can be fulfilled and invoiced when the item comes back into stock. The outstanding item quantity will be added to the Reorder Backordered list in DEAR so a PO can be generated. 



Create purchase orders for backordered products

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Backordered products are added to the Reorder Backordered list in DEAR. From here, you can generate purchase orders for the outstanding items. 


To create purchase orders for backordered products:

  1. Navigate to Purchase → Reorder Backordered.
  2. Choose a supplier from the list. You can also filter products by customer and by product tags, or click Select All.
  3. Choose one or more products from the list.
  4. Click Reorder. New Purchase Order tasks are then generated for each supplier (for more information on purchase orders, see Processing a Purchase). A link to the generated PO will appear on screen. 
  5. The default item quantity for the generated PO will accumulate any other outstanding backorders for that product, however this can be changed on the PO before it is authorised if necessary.
  6. When the required stock is received into your inventory, the sale order can be fulfilled and invoiced as usual (see next section). 


Complete a split order or backorder sale

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After a PO for the backordered has been generated, you must wait until the items are delivered and follow the steps in Processing a Purchase. When the required stock is received into your inventory, the sale order can then be fulfilled and invoiced as usual using the steps laid out in Processing a Sale


NOTE: If your sales process is set to automatic fulfillment, backordered items will NOT trigger the fulfillment process automatically. Invoice and fulfillment must be manually authorised once the backordered items have been received.


Reports to keep track of backorders

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You can use the following reports by navigating Reports →Sales to be keep track of your backorder information. See Managing DEAR Reports for more information about reporting in DEAR. 


Sale Backorder Summary Report

This report shows all backordered products in your inventory. Use this report to view a summary of backordered products, the supplier for the order, and quantities (required, on hand, remaining  (on hand - required) and ordered. This report does not show which sales order the backordered product corresponds to. See Sale Backorder Summary Report for more details.


Sale Backorder Details Report

This report shows all authorised sale orders containing backordered items which have not yet shipped to the customer. Use this report to show which customers and sale orders are waiting on backordered products, the backordered quantity and sale ship by date.See Sale Backorder Details Report for more details.


Find Sale Backorder by Purchase Order

This report allows finding all sales included in a purchase order created by the Reorder Backordered function. Use this report to see products ordered, quantity ordered, supplier and whether stock has been received yet. You can also change the heading order to find purchase orders by sale backorder.

If backordered items are reordered from different suppliers, the report shows multiple purchase orders for the sale task. If the purchase order contains backordered products sold using different sale tasks, the report shows the PO tasks for each sale order task. See Find Sale Backorder by Purchase Order for more details.



Backorders and assembly/production items

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Authorising a sale order for an out-of-stock assembly item will:

  • If auto-assembly is enabled for the product: automatically create an assembly order for that product.
  • If auto-assembly is not enabled for the product: you will be asked if you wish to backorder the product. If the assembly item has a supplier assigned, you will be able to use the Reorder Backordered function as shown above. If no supplier is assigned, no backorder will be possible. 


Authorising an assembly order when some components are out of stock will make the out of stock components available for backorder. This applies to both manual and auto-assembly items. If finished good components are backordered, the assembly will not be automatically completed when the components are received. The assembly must be manually authorised once the required components are back in stock. See Finished Good Assembly – Backordering Out-of-Stock Components for more information. 


Authorising a sale order for an out-of-stock production item will prompt you to backorder the item.

  • If Create Production Order: When order is authorised is selected, this will automatically create a production order for the item and for any nested semi-finished components. 
  • If this setting is not enabled but the item as a supplier assigned, you will be able to use the Reorder Backordered function as shown above. If no supplier is assigned, no backorder will be possible. 


See Getting Started with the Production module and Managing Production Orders for more information on production items. 


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