This section covers two purposes. The first is to create the Fulfillment location for the stores we created in the previous section, but also to load Inventory availability for the products we loaded in the data load section.
Knowing the position of stock availability is a critical component in an omnichannel organization. This section covers how NewStore calculates inventory availability, however, the management of inventory movement will be documented in a separate module.
Inventory within NewStore is stored against each Location, whether this is virtual or physical locations. Against each location, two primary inventory numbers are used to manage inventory.
Stock on hand - this number should reflect the total number of units in the location regardless of its movement status. This is the base number used to calculate the available to promise number.
Available to Promise (ATP) - this reflects the number of units available to sell.
Depending on the scope of the implementation, there are two modes of setup when it comes to how NewStore sees uses inventory numbers; these are
NewStore is the master of store on hand stock management and the availability of units within all store locations. In this mode Warehouse movements are still controlled by a WMS system, and available for NewStore via availability data imports.
NewStore subscribes to availability in all locations. In this mode, NewStore will require frequent updates to the available to promise numbers.
Available to Promise (ATP) calculation
The ATP calculation is based on the below numbers. Note that NewStore currently cannot support managing stock in weight or volume.
Stock On hand
The calculation starts with a base stock on hand number. The number only gets adjusted up or down when the item physically moves in and out of the locations.
Reservation
The number of units currently allocated to be delivered from this location. Item or Order cancellation can reduce this number as the items are to be committed for fulfillment. A reservation is transformed into an allocation as soon as the order item is routed after the grace period.
Allocation
The number of units currently in the process of being fulfilled. This number reflects the converted reservation to fulfillment commitment.
Safety stock
The number of units permanently reserved from order fulfillment operations is typically used to make certain the store has availability within the Retail store. The number can also be used by an ERP system as a trigger for auto-replenishment.
Current ATP
The current ATP is calculated by summing the Reservation, the Allocation, and Safety Stock elements and removing this from Stock On Hand numbers.
Future ATP
The future ATP considers stock which will be available in the future as part of the pre-selling functionality of NewStore. This is only available for DC locations. See more in Importing stock information
To create the fulfillment node for the stores you have created, perform a stock import refer to the tutorial mentioned in the platform documentation.
Note
Without a fulfillment node created for the store, orders will not transition into the “Completed” state and will be stuck in “Pending”.