Allocating a sales order reserves on-hand stock from your warehouses against that order so the units are held for this customer and are no longer counted as freely available for other demand. Allocation is a planning step: it reserves stock, but it does not move or reduce inventory. Stock only leaves the warehouse when you dispatch a shipment.
Allocation happens inside the sales order workspace, on the Pending shipment screen. From there you can allocate the order, release (deallocate) reservations, move reservations to a different shipping warehouse, put the order on hold, and start a shipment. Allocation is only available on real sales orders: quotes and canceled orders cannot be allocated.
What allocation does
When you allocate an order, Qoblex reserves available on-hand stock at a location for each ordered variant. The reservation:
- Reduces the available quantity of the variant at that location (allocated stock is held, not free).
- Does not reduce on-hand stock. On-hand quantity is unchanged until a shipment is dispatched.
- Sets the order stock status based on how completely the order could be covered (see the status table below).
Dispatching a shipment is what actually removes stock from the warehouse and consumes the reservation. Allocation and dispatch are separate steps: allocation holds the stock, dispatch ships it. For picking, packing, and dispatch, see the shipments article.
Do not use allocation to fix inventory counts. If on-hand numbers are wrong, correct them through receiving, a stock transfer, or a stock adjustment first, then allocate.
Open the Pending shipment screen
The allocation screen is reached from the sales order workspace side panel.
- Open the sales order from the Sales list.
- In the workspace side panel, under the order summary, select Pending shipment.
The Pending shipment link appears only when the order status is Open and the order is not yet fully fulfilled. It is hidden for quotes (there is no stock to reserve on a quote) and for orders whose stock status is already Fulfilled (all units have shipped, so there is no remaining allocation work).
Allocate the order
On the Pending shipment screen, select Allocate in the top toolbar. Qoblex reserves available stock for the order’s variants and refreshes the screen.
The Allocate button is shown whenever the order stock status is not Ready To Ship (there is still something to reserve). Allocation runs as a background action; when it finishes, the allocation groups and per-line indicators update.
Each allocated line shows an indicator in the form Allocated Stock N / M, where N is the quantity reserved and M is the quantity ordered for that variant, together with a status badge:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Full | The full ordered quantity for the variant is reserved. |
| Partial | Some, but not all, of the ordered quantity is reserved. |
| Empty | No stock could be reserved for the variant. |
| OnHold | The allocation is held (the order or line was put on hold). |
Lines are grouped by the location the stock is reserved from, with the location name shown for each group. Bundle parts appear indented under their parent line and are reserved together with the parent.
Quotes and canceled orders cannot be allocated. If you try, Qoblex reports that the order is a quote (convert it to a sales order first) or that it is canceled. Convert the quote to an order before allocating.
Partial allocation
If there is not enough available stock to cover every ordered unit, Qoblex reserves what it can. Lines are marked Partial or Empty, and the order stock status becomes Awaiting Stock rather than Ready To Ship. Bring in more stock (for example by receiving a purchase order) and allocate again to top up the reservation.
Order stock status after allocating
Allocating (or deallocating) recalculates the order’s stock status. This status is what the workspace and the sales list use to show where the order stands:
| Stock status | When it is set |
|---|---|
| Ready To Ship | Every allocation on the order is Full, so the whole order can be shipped. |
| Awaiting Stock | The order still has allocations, but at least one is not fully covered. This is also where an order lands after you deallocate lines: the reservations are released to zero but remain on the order. |
| On Hold | The order was put on hold with Put On Hold. On-hold orders do not reserve inventory. |
| Fulfilled | Every ordered unit has been shipped (dispatched) or returned. |
An order showing Awaiting Stock is not yet fully reservable. Review incoming stock, the source location, and existing reservations on competing orders before trying to pick and dispatch.
Choose which warehouse stock is reserved from
Each allocation group is tied to a shipping location. To move a group’s reservations to a different warehouse:
- On the Pending shipment screen, find the location group you want to move.
- Select Change Location.
- Pick the shipping warehouse from the location list.
- Confirm with the check button (or cancel with the close button).
Qoblex re-reserves that group’s variants at the location you chose. If you confirm without picking a location, Qoblex asks you to pick a location first.
The location picker only lists warehouses that are enabled for shipping. If a warehouse is missing, check that it is configured as a shipping location.
Reservations on a deleted location
If a warehouse that held reservations was later deleted, its group still appears on the screen labelled Unknown location with a warning. Those reservations are stranded there until you act on them. Use Change Location to move them to an active warehouse, or deallocate them, so the order can be shipped.
Deallocate (release) reservations
Deallocating releases held stock back to available inventory. Use it when an order is delayed, canceled, or when the stock is needed for more urgent demand.
- On the Pending shipment screen, tick the checkbox on each line you want to release.
- Select Deallocate.
- Qoblex releases the reserved stock for the ticked lines back to available inventory.
Deallocate is shown only when the order has at least one Full or Partial allocation to release. When you deallocate lines, Qoblex releases their reserved stock and sets those allocations to zero, but the (now empty) allocations stay on the order. Because the order still has allocations, its stock status becomes Awaiting Stock rather than On Hold. Allocate the order again to re-reserve stock, or use Put On Hold if you want the order to hold no reservations at all.
If you select Deallocate with no lines ticked, the confirmation dialog offers to act on all items, but confirming it currently puts the whole order on hold rather than releasing its stock (it runs the same Put On Hold action). To release specific reservations back to available inventory, tick the lines you want first, then select Deallocate.
Put the order on hold
Selecting Put On Hold releases the order’s reservations and marks its allocations as held. An order on hold does not reserve inventory, which is useful when a customer does not want stock held against the order yet. You can hold selected lines by ticking them first, or hold the whole order by confirming when nothing is selected.
Allocate the order again when you are ready to reserve stock and move it toward shipping.
Start a shipment from a location group
Each location group with a known warehouse offers a Ship link. Selecting it creates a shipment for that group’s allocated items from that location and opens the shipment screen, where you pick, pack, and dispatch.
Reserving specific batches or lots for batch-tracked variants is done during the shipment pick, not on the allocation screen. When you pick a shipment that contains batch- or serial-tracked items, Qoblex opens the batch reservation step so you can choose the exact batches to ship. That flow, and picking, packing, and dispatch, are covered in the shipments article.
Shipments overview
Below the allocation groups, the Pending shipment screen lists a Shipments Overview once the order has shipments. Each entry shows the shipment number, its status (pending, dispatched, or canceled), the warehouse it ships from, and a link to open the shipment. Dispatched shipments are what consume the reservation and reduce on-hand stock.