How to handle a backorder

A backorder is the part of a purchase order that did not turn up. You received some of it on the order's page in What are suppliers and purchase orders? (Buying › Purchase orders), and the supplier still owes you the rest.

Tideswell keeps counting that remainder as owed to you until somebody says otherwise. That is the right default, because a supplier who is late has not stopped owing you the goods.

Why does it matter that you record it?

Because an order nobody tidies up says goods are coming for ever.

Whoever plans your buying reads what is on order and holds money back for it. If half of it is never going to arrive, they hold back money you could have spent, and the shelf runs empty.

The opposite is just as costly. Cancel a line that really is coming, and the same goods get bought twice.

What if the rest is still coming?

Move the order's arrival date so it lands in the right month. Nothing else is needed: the remainder stays on order, which is the truth.

1. On Buying › Purchase orders, open the List.
2. Press the pencil at the end of the order's row to open Edit purchase order. On the Revisions calendar, clicking the order itself does the same.
3. Change the Arrival date.
4. Press Save changes.

Arrival is what lateness is judged against, so the order stops reading as late until the new date passes. See How to find late orders and plan revisions.

When the supplier ships the rest, add it under Shipments on the order with its carrier and due date. See How to track a shipment on its way.

How do you cancel some products and keep the rest?

Type the new number in the Revised column for that line.

To cancel whatever has not arrived, set Revised to the number you have already received. Ordered 10, received 6, type 6. The other four stop counting as owed to you.

Use the received number rather than 0. A 0 says none are coming at all, so the six you did receive read as extra. A line revised to 0 also leaves the order once you send the supplier a revision, as in How to send a revision and export an order.

What if nothing else is coming at all?

Press the ⋯ menu on the order and choose Close short. It appears once the order is partly received.

It writes off everything still outstanding, in Tideswell only, and moves the order to your finished stage, Closed by default. It does not touch Shopify stock, because goods that never arrived were never in your stock.

Reopen, in the same menu, undoes it and puts the order back in the stage it was in. See How to receive a delivery.

Why is there no way to remove the line?

Because the order is placed. Once an order reaches a placed stage, such as Order placed, the bin icon goes away for every line, and the Ordered numbers lock.

Cut the line with Revised instead, as above. It keeps the record of what you asked for next to what you will actually get.

Does the supplier find out?

Not by itself. Changing Revised records what you expect, and sends nothing.

Use Send revision in the ⋯ menu when the supplier should have it in writing. See How to send a revision and export an order.

Does this change what my planner sees?

It depends on where your open-to-buy feed reads orders from. That is the Orders on order choice in Feed settings on Buying › Data feeds › Open to buy.

• Tideswell: the feed reads the purchase orders you raise here. A cut line, a close short and a new arrival date all reach the file, split by the month each delivery is due.
• Shopify: the current month reads what Shopify says is incoming, and that figure is kept by whichever app raises your purchase orders. If that is not Tideswell, cancel the dead order there as well, or the planner keeps seeing it.

Earlier months always read the orders in Tideswell. See How to send your open-to-buy file to a buying planner.

Your workspace may use its own words for purchase orders and stages; Settings › Terminology and Settings › Stages show them.