Orders can be placed into "Waiting for Inventory" for a variety of reasons.
An order is Waiting for Inventory even though there appears to be enough inventory to fill the order. What is going on?
An order can be in Waiting for Inventory status even though there is physically inventory on hand to fill an order because there are other orders that were placed before that order (i.e. the fulfillment requests were transmitted to Mochila before this order) that also required the same item, and all units in inventory have been bound to those earlier orders.
Those earlier orders can also be in Waiting for Inventory because they are waiting for some other item.
It is important to note that Mochila binds inventory to orders on a First-In, First-Out (FIFO) basis. In other words, inventory is reserved for orders based on the orders that were placed first. Orders that are placed later for a specific item can not "rob" inventory that has been allocated or bound to orders for that item that were placed earlier.
An illustrative example can help clarify, but if you are not familiar with the distinction between Physical Inventory and Available Inventory please review the help page on different types of inventory.
Let's say order #12876 is placed on Monday for Item A (which has available inventory) and Item B (which has no available inventory). Before the order is placed, the inventory looks like this:
|
UPC |
Physical Inventory | Available Inventory | Bound Inventory | Unfilled Demand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Item A | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Item B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
After order #12876 is placed, the inventory looks like this:
|
UPC |
Physical Inventory | Available Inventory | Bound Inventory | Unfilled Demand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Item A | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Item B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
In this case, the inventory reports will show there is 1 unit of Item A in inventory. However, that unit of Item A is now bound to order #12876. In the portal, under INVENTORY --> CURRENT BY WAREHOUSE, there will be still be 1 unit of Item A in inventory, but there will be 0 units of Item A reported as Available.
In addition, please note that there is 1 unit of Item B reported as Unfilled Demand. When additional stock of Item B is received into inventory, that inventory will be bound to order #12876 first, and then any additional inventory will be bound to orders placed after order #12876.
Now, let's say another order is placed on Tuesday, order #14200, for 1 unit of Item A. Since order #14200 was placed after order #12876, there is no Available Inventory of Item A to fill order #14200 even though there is 1 unit of Item A in Physical Inventory.
After order #14200 is placed, the inventory looks like this:
|
UPC |
Physical Inventory | Available Inventory | Bound Inventory | Unfilled Demand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Item A | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Item B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
The placement of order #14200 has increased the Unfilled Demand for Item A from 0 to 1. Everything else remains the same for Item A: There is still 1 unit in Physical Inventory, and that 1 unit is promised to fulfill order #12876 (resulting in 1 unit of Bound Inventory). There is no Available Inventory (Physical Inventory minus Bound Inventory).