Allocation, Stock Reservation & Backorders
Allocation is how Helm WMS works out which of your open orders can go out today, and holds the stock back for them so the same unit is never promised twice. This article covers the figures behind that answer, when allocation runs, how Helm chooses between competing orders, and how orders move into and back out of Backorder.
What Allocation Does for You
Every time your stock or your orders change, Helm works out which of your open orders it can cover in full and holds those quantities for them. That list is what your team picks against.
It works through your open orders in a fixed priority order and asks one question of each: can every line be covered right now, from stock nothing else has claimed? If so, Helm records a claim against those quantities and marks the order fulfillable. If not, it holds no claim and the stock stays free for the next order.
It is all or nothing, per order. A line counts as covered only if its full quantity fits, and an order that cannot be covered in full takes no stock at all.
It claims a quantity, not a location. Which shelf the stock comes from is decided later, when a pick is created.
Nothing physically moves. Allocation changes no stock figure. It records who has first claim.
Go to Orders, open the filters and set Is Fulfillable to Yes or No to split your open orders into the ones Helm can cover today and the ones it cannot.
Example scenario: you hold 30 units of BRK-1200 and two orders arrive for 20 each. The higher-priority one, SO-10481, allocates all 20. SO-10482 needs 20 and only 10 remain, so it allocates nothing and reads unfulfillable. Those 10 units are not stranded: a later order for eight units can still allocate out of them.
Reading the Stock Figures
Almost every "the figure says I have stock" query comes down to sums that count different things. They are columns on Inventory, and on the Stock Control card of a product.
Allocation works from none of those. Its own number is physical stock, minus everything reserved to a pick, minus everything already allocated to other orders. Two differences catch people out:
Available can read lower or higher than what an order can take. A Draft order, or one in Backorder, pulls it down without stopping that stock going to a live order. Stock reserved to a pick works the other way: it stays in Physical, and so in Available, but allocation cannot touch it.
Full warehouses allocate from your stock locations. On Full mode, allocation leaves out the five process locations named on the warehouse record: Default Picked Location, Default Delivery Location, Default Assembly Location, Default Returns Location and Default Sort Location.
If your warehouse has Stock Control set to Disabled, every order counts as fulfillable and nothing is backordered automatically.
When Allocation Runs
Allocation looks after itself: there is nothing to trigger by hand. It runs at these points, and a figure that looks stale for a minute or two is almost always the once-a-minute catch-up in the fourth row.
Orders already in the pick pipeline are left out: once an order is Picking, Partially Picked, Picked, Sorting or Sorted, its stock is reserved rather than merely allocated, and rechecking it would take its own stock away from it. Packing is not in that list: a packed order holds no reservation.
How Helm Chooses Between Competing Orders
When two orders want the same unit, Helm sorts the candidates by target despatch date with the latest first, then by the date the order was placed with the oldest first, then by the order's own ID as a tiebreaker. The same orders against the same stock always give the same result, so any outcome can be explained afterwards.
An order that does not fit is skipped without consuming anything, so a large order waiting on stock cannot starve the smaller orders behind it. And because target despatch date leads the sort, a later Target Despatch Date moves an order up the queue and an earlier one moves it down.
Reservation: Stock Held for a Pick
Allocation is a soft claim on a quantity. Reservation is the hard version: creating a pick reserves the exact quantity at the exact location the picker will visit, and that quantity leaves the pool allocation draws on, so creating picks changes what other orders can allocate even though no stock has moved.
The reservation is held until the pick is finished with. Publishing the pick turns it into a real stock movement. Cancelling the pick, or resetting a line, puts the quantity back and queues the affected products for a recheck.
A pick left inactive releases after 10 minutes. That frees the pick record for a colleague to take over. The stock stays reserved to that pick until it is published or cancelled.
Available to Pick is the figure that reflects reservations. If Available looks healthy but Available to Pick is zero, your stock is real and already committed to picks nobody has published.
Which Stock a Pick Takes
Allocation reserves no location, so the shelf is chosen when the pick is built. The product's own settings decide which of three routes Helm takes.
For the first two routes, locations are offered in the order set by the pick's multi-location priority: ILP (Inventory Location Priority) follows your location sequence, ELP (Empty Location Priority) clears the emptiest location first, and SLP (Single Location Priority) takes from the fullest. The expiry route ignores that setting: expiry date wins.
Backorders & the Two Ways In
Backorder is an order status, and an order in it is parked: not picked, not printable, holding no promise on stock. It is still open, so it counts towards In Orders and you can raise a purchase order against it.
To park one there yourself, open the order and set Order Status to Backorder. Two separate automated mechanisms also do it, so it is worth knowing which of them is on at your site.
Route One: Automatic Backorder
The built-in automation moves a new order that cannot be covered from current stock to Backorder for you, and moves it back once stock covers it. It is off by default. To turn it on for a whole store:
Go to Settings and, in the Company Settings card, click your store.
Open the Backorder Automation section.
Switch on Automatic Backorder. Its tooltip, Restock Automation, describes the return trip.
Decide whether to switch on Split Partially Fulfillable Orders, which only appears once Automatic Backorder is on. Left off, a partly coverable order goes to Backorder whole. Switched on, the uncovered lines move into a new child order that goes to Backorder, and the coverable lines stay on the original as a New Order so they can ship today.
Choose Save Changes. Clear abandons an unsaved edit.
Splitting only ever moves whole lines: Helm will not part-fill a line by quantity, so a line for 10 units with six in stock moves in one piece.
A split leaves two real orders with their own numbers, and the child links back to its parent: the original carries the lines that could ship, the child carries the rest. That is what a part-shipped order looks like.
Both settings also exist per sales channel on the same store page: open the Sales Channels card, edit a channel and look inside Optional Settings on Edit Connection Settings. The store wins: with Automatic Backorder on at store level, every channel has it on and the channel toggle is locked, with a Managed at Store level tooltip explaining why.
Route Two: An Order Rule on Fulfillable
Order rules reach the same status with no backorder setting enabled anywhere. Under Processing > Order Rules, Fulfillable is available as a condition field and Set Order Status as an action, with a New Status of Backorder. The automation and the rule look at slightly different things: Automatic Backorder works coverage out from stock as it stands at that moment, while the rule uses the last saved answer, the one the Is Fulfillable filter shows, so on very large imports they can briefly disagree. Splitting is the automation's alone, so a rule sets the status and nothing more.
How Backorders Return to New Order
Stock arriving does not release backorders on the spot. Helm reviews them three times a day, at 06:00, 10:00 and 14:00, and moves the ones current stock now covers back to New Order. Allocation then happens as part of that status change.
It is whole-order, not partial. A backorder is released only when every line on it fits.
The budget is shared, in priority order. When a small delivery arrives against many competing backorders, Helm releases them highest priority first and stops when the stock runs out, rather than releasing them all and overselling.
Manually backordered orders are reviewed too. The pass looks at whatever is in Backorder, so an order you parked there by hand can come back on its own.
To bring an order back sooner than the next run, open it and set Order Status to New Order.
Finding Out Why an Order Has Not Gone Out
Work down these checks in order and one of them will hold the answer. If part of the order shipped and the rest sits in Backorder, that is the automatic split described in the Backorders section above.
Check the Order's Own Figures First
Open the order and hover the quantity on the suspect line for its Quantity Info popover, which shows Physical Stock and Available Stock side by side. Next check the product's Available to Pick: well below Available means the stock exists but is reserved to open picks. Then check whether a higher-priority order took it, using Is Fulfillable alongside Target Despatch Date. On Full mode, also check the stock is not in a process location or one set to Exclude Qty from Available.
Give a Recent Stock Change a Minute
A delivery published seconds ago has not been through allocation yet, because stock changes are worked through once a minute. Editing the order, or changing its status, rechecks it straight away. Anything still wrong next morning is worth raising, because the overnight pass recomputes every open order.
Get a Greyed-Out Despatch Moving
Hover the action. A tooltip titled Cannot be Despatched gives the reason, and "Orders with insufficient stock of items cannot be despatched." means what it says. That check looks at the stock a picker could fetch right now rather than the last saved answer, so it can disagree with Is Fulfillable for a short window after a stock change.
Trace Which Route Backordered an Order
Open the store under Settings > Company Settings and see whether Automatic Backorder is on, at store level or on the order's channel. Then check Processing > Order Rules for a rule using the Fulfillable field. If neither is, someone moved it by hand and the order's timeline shows who.
Check the Lines on a Waiting Backorder
Either the next scheduled run is not due yet, or the delivery covered competing backorders but not this one, or one line is still short, which holds the whole order back because release is all or nothing. Check the lines individually against each product's Available figure rather than judging the order as a whole.
Getting the Most Out of Allocation
Once allocation is doing its work the day has a shape: pick against the fulfillable list, publish each pick as it is finished, and let the three daily passes bring backorders back as deliveries land.
Publishing finished picks promptly is the habit that matters most, because stock reserved to a pick nobody is working is invisible to every other order.
FAQ
How Do I Move an Order Up the Queue?
Change the inputs, because allocation is computed rather than assigned by hand, which keeps it consistent across thousands of orders. The queue runs on target despatch date, latest first, so a later Target Despatch Date is served before an earlier one. You can also publish the picks holding the stock, or reduce the quantity on the line.
Does an Allocated Order Hold the Stock Against Everything Else?
Against other orders, yes: competing orders cannot allocate it. It does not stop a person moving that stock in the warehouse, which is why a movement or a stock count triggers a recheck.
How Do Backorders Affect My Available Figure?
They count towards In Orders and so reduce Available, but they hold no allocation, so they do not stop that stock going to a live order. It is the commonest reason Available reads lower than what an order can claim.
Which Orders Go to Backorder Whole Rather Than Splitting?
Merged orders, and orders that already have an active shipment: Helm moves those to Backorder in one piece rather than splitting them.
If an order still will not allocate once you have checked Available to Pick, the process locations and the orders ahead of it, contact support with the order number and the product code.
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