Overview
The Allocation Planner lets you decide, line by line, where each unit on a posted sales order will come from — existing on-hand stock, an inbound purchase order, a new supplier PO, an addition to an open PO, or a Preorder reservation. When you confirm the plan, Luminous automatically creates fulfillment orders (for in-stock lines) and supplier POs (for buy-new lines), and triggers fulfillment automatically when inbound POs are received.
Availability: This feature must be enabled on your account. If you do not see the Allocate button described below, contact your Luminous administrator.
Opening the Allocation Planner
- Go to Operations → Sales Orders and open the posted order you want to allocate.
- Open the Actions menu in the order header and choose Allocate order (under Purchase to Order). This option appears when the feature is enabled and the order has lines that are not yet fully allocated.
- The Allocation Planner opens as a full page showing every product line on the order.
The planner loads a best-fit suggestion automatically — it fills from on-hand stock first, then reserves against the soonest-arriving inbound PO, then queues a new PO for anything left. You can accept this plan as-is or adjust any line before confirming.
Understanding the supply methods
Each line shows the available supply options based on current stock and open purchase orders at your warehouses:
| Method | What it does | When fulfillment happens |
|---|---|---|
| In stock | Ships units already on hand at a warehouse | Immediately on Confirm |
| Incoming PO | Reserves units on an inbound PO already in transit | When that PO is received |
| Buy new | Creates a new supplier purchase order | When the new PO is received |
| Add to existing PO | Appends this line to an open active PO | When that PO is received |
| Preorder | Reserves no specific stock; auto-ships when matching stock arrives | When any stock lands at the pinned warehouse |
Allocating a line
Pick-one mode (default)
- Find the line card for the SKU you want to source.
- Click the fulfillment method you want: In stock, Incoming PO, Buy new, or open More options to see Preorder and Add to existing PO.
- The planner automatically fills the line's quantity from that method.
- For Buy new: a supplier picker appears. Type to search and select the supplier. Lines going to the same warehouse and supplier are grouped into one PO.
- For Add to existing PO: a search picker appears. Search by PO number and choose the open PO to append to.
- If there are multiple eligible warehouses, a destination picker appears — choose where this line should ship from.
Split across sources
If a line's quantity needs to come from more than one source (for example, 3 on hand and 5 from an incoming PO):
- Click Split across sources on the line card.
- Enter quantities in each source's quantity field. The planner tracks shared pools across lines so you cannot over-allocate.
- Click Split across sources again to return to pick-one mode.
Searching for a specific inbound PO
The planner shows the soonest-arriving inbound POs for each warehouse group. To find a specific PO by number:
- In the line card, find the warehouse group section.
- Use the Search PO # field to look up a specific inbound PO.
- The found PO appears as a reservable source.
Ship Complete
The Ship Complete toggle at the top of the planner holds every line — including lines that could ship from on-hand stock today — until the entire order can ship together. Turn this on when you must not send a partial shipment to your customer.
When Ship Complete is on, on-hand lines are held alongside PO-backed lines and released together once all lines are coverable.
Reading the plan summary
The right-hand panel shows a live summary of the current plan, grouped by what will happen:
- Ship from [warehouse] — units shipping immediately from on-hand stock
- Reserve on [PO name] — units reserved against an incoming PO (with estimated arrival date)
- Preorder — [warehouse] — units that will auto-ship when stock lands
- Add to [PO name] — units being appended to an existing open PO
- Buy from [supplier] — new POs that will be created on Confirm
A line badge shows its status: Ready (fully sourced), Incomplete (partially sourced), or Needs sourcing.
Confirming the plan
- Review the summary panel to make sure every line is marked Ready.
- If any line shows a supplier blocker ("pick a supplier"), click the amber badge or use the panel's supplier picker.
- Click Confirm plan when all lines are ready.
What happens on Confirm:
- In-stock lines → a fulfillment order is created immediately, pinned to the channel you chose.
- New PO lines → one supplier purchase order is created per unique (channel, supplier) combination.
- Incoming PO / Add to PO lines → the pegs are recorded. Fulfillment orders are generated automatically when the purchase order is received (see [How does Luminous automatically fulfill a pegged sales order when the purchase order is received?]).
- Preorder lines → reservations are recorded; fulfillment fires when stock becomes available at the pinned warehouse.
You are returned to the sales order detail page after a successful confirmation.