Reserve quantity from open purchase orders against work order material shortages using Allocate from Incoming in Luminous Work Orders.

Collection: Work Orders: Getting Started
Priority: P0

Who this is for

Purchasing and production planning staff who cover raw material shortages using stock already on order (blanket POs, prior purchases).

Before you begin

  • Production run or work order in Draft or Planned with visible shortages (Material shortages guide)
  • Open purchase orders exist for the short materials with unreceived quantity

Steps

1. Open the production run or work order

Go to Inventory → Work Orders → Production Runs and open your run, or open an individual work order from Orders.

2. Find the short material

In the production run Shared Components table (or work order Bill of Materials tab), locate a row with a shortage. Check the Inc. Available column for incoming PO quantity you can use.

3. Open Allocate from Incoming

Click the row action menu and select Allocate from Incoming.

On the work order Bill of Materials tab, the same action appears per component row.

4. Review the allocation dialog

The Allocate Incoming Stock dialog shows:

  • Current Shortage — How much this material still needs
  • Total Allocating — Sum of quantities you will reserve
  • Remaining Shortage — Gap left after this allocation
  • A list of open POs with available incoming quantity

Luminous auto-fills allocation quantities to cover as much of the shortage as possible.

5. Understand PO priority

POs are sorted by priority:

  1. Earliest expected arrival date (EAD) first
  2. If no EAD is set, most recently created PO first

You can adjust individual PO quantities before confirming.

See also: How does Allocate from Incoming choose which PO to use?

6. Confirm

Click Allocate {N} (where N is the total quantity being allocated).

7. Verify

Refresh the Shared Components or BOM table:

  • Inc. Allocated increases
  • Shortage decreases
  • Linked POs appear in the work order sidebar under Purchase Orders

Repeat for each material still showing a shortage, or proceed to Generate purchase orders for remaining gaps.

What happens next

  • Allocated incoming quantity is reserved for this work order's BOM line.
  • When those POs are received, the incoming allocation converts to committed inventory.
  • POs used in allocation are linked to the work order automatically.

Co-manufacturer workflow callout

If you maintain blanket POs for raw materials, run Allocate from Incoming for each short material before generating new POs. This is the fastest way to reflect stock already on order and avoids duplicate purchasing.

Still stuck?

Contact support if a PO with incoming quantity does not appear in the allocation dialog.