What is a Fulfillment Order?
A fulfillment order (FO) is Luminous's instruction to a warehouse to pick, pack, and ship specific items. Every sales order that needs physical goods shipped will have one or more fulfillment orders tied to it. A single sales order can produce multiple fulfillment orders — for example, when items need to ship from different warehouses, on different target ship dates, or when a product is configured to always ship separately.
Prerequisites
Before a fulfillment order can be created, the sales order must be posted. Fulfillment orders cannot be generated from unposted (draft) sales orders.
How Fulfillment Orders Are Created
There are two ways to create fulfillment orders from a sales order:
1. Auto-Generate (Recommended)
Luminous can automatically create fulfillment orders based on your warehouse priority lists, available stock, and channel settings.
To trigger auto-generation manually:
- Open the sales order and navigate to its Fulfillment Orders tab.
- Click the Actions button.
- Select Auto Generate Fulfillment Orders.
Luminous will then:
- Check each line item's stock across your configured warehouse priority lists.
- Attempt to consolidate all items into one warehouse (if your Smart Fulfillment settings have consolidation enabled).
- Split into multiple fulfillment orders if items need to come from different warehouses, have different estimated ship dates (if configured), or are flagged to fulfill separately.
- Assign a Ship By Date automatically when splitting by estimated ship date.
Note: Auto-generation also runs on a daily schedule, processing posted sales orders from the last two days that do not yet have fulfillment orders. This means FOs are often created automatically without any manual step.
2. Create Manually
If you want full control over which warehouse, channel, and quantities to assign:
- Open the sales order and navigate to its Fulfillment Orders tab.
- Click the Actions button.
- Select Create Fulfillment Order.
- A Fulfill Orders dialog will open. Fill in the warehouse, fulfillment channel, quantities, and any other required fields.
- Save to create the fulfillment order.
Important: The system will prevent you from opening this dialog if all line items are already fully fulfilled or cancelled. Non-inventory and non-physical items do not count toward the remaining quantity check.
Fulfillment Order Statuses
Once created, a fulfillment order will have one of the following statuses:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Newly created; not yet sent to a warehouse |
| Planned | Scheduled for fulfillment |
| Awaiting Shipment | Accepted by the warehouse, waiting to ship |
| On Hold | Paused and not being processed |
| Partially Shipped | Some items have shipped |
| Shipped | All items have shipped |
| Cancelled | Fulfillment order was cancelled |
| Error | An error occurred (e.g., push to WMS failed) |
| Action Required | Requires manual intervention before proceeding |
Pushing a Fulfillment Order to a Warehouse (WMS)
Creating a fulfillment order in Luminous does not automatically send it to your warehouse management system (WMS). You need to push it:
- On the Fulfillment Orders tab (or the dedicated Fulfillment Orders page), select one or more fulfillment orders using the checkboxes.
- Click Actions → Push to Fulfillment Channel.
- A confirmation dialog will show the channel, warehouse group, and store. Confirm to proceed.
Once pushed, the fulfillment order's status updates and a source reference identifier from the WMS is recorded. A pushed fulfillment order cannot be edited unless you first unpush it via Actions → Unpush from WMS.
Auto-Push
If your fulfillment channel is configured with an auto-push delay, Luminous will automatically push eligible fulfillment orders after that delay (e.g., 15 minutes after creation) without any manual step. If an auto-push fails, the fulfillment order is set to Error status and excluded from future auto-push attempts until the status is manually reset.
Confirming Shipment
Once a fulfillment order has shipped (either because the WMS reported it back, or you are managing shipments manually), you can:
- Mark as Shipped: Select the fulfillment order → Actions → Mark as Shipped. Enter a tracking number and carrier code in the dialog to confirm.
- Update Status: Select the fulfillment order → Actions → Update Status to set any status manually (e.g., On Hold, Awaiting Shipment).
Other Useful Actions
| Action | When to Use |
|---|---|
| Bulk Re-Create Fulfillment Orders | Delete a stale FO and auto-generate a replacement (same as auto-generate but replaces the existing one) |
| Re-route Fulfillment Orders | Change the warehouse assignment for one or more FOs |
| Export Packing Slips | Print packing slips for selected FOs |
| Create Picklists | Generate pick lists for warehouse staff |
| Create Invoices | Batch-create invoices from shipped FOs |
| Correct Sales Order Address | Fix the ship-to address before pushing |
Tips & Troubleshooting
- No FOs generated after auto-generate? Check that: (1) the sales order is posted, (2) there is available stock, and (3) a warehouse priority list is configured. If stock is insufficient and your Smart Fulfillment settings do not have "Always Create" enabled, no FO will be created.
- FO stuck in Error? Review the error message on the fulfillment order row. Fix the underlying issue (e.g., WMS configuration), then manually update the status away from Error so the system can retry.
- Cannot edit a pushed FO? You must unpush it first using Unpush from WMS, make your edits, then push again.
- Items split across multiple FOs unexpectedly? This is by design when items have different estimated ship dates (if your channel is configured to split by ship date), different warehouse assignments, or are flagged to "Fulfill Separately" at the product level.