Overview
When sales orders contain items with future Estimated Ship Dates, Luminous handles allocation in two related ways:
- Fulfillment order splitting — items with different estimated ship dates can be automatically grouped into separate fulfillment orders, each stamped with the correct target ship date.
- Pending inventory reservation — whether a future-dated order actually reduces your available inventory today depends on whether the Back Orders feature is enabled for your account.
How Fulfillment Orders Are Split by Ship Date
By default, Luminous groups all items on a sales order into fulfillment orders based on which warehouse has stock. If your channel is configured to split by Estimated Ship Date, items with different dates are automatically separated into distinct fulfillment orders.
Example
| Order Item | Estimated Ship Date | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Item A | Jan 15 | Fulfillment Order 1 |
| Item B | Jan 15 | Fulfillment Order 1 |
| Item C | Jan 20 | Fulfillment Order 2 |
| Item D | (none) | Fulfillment Order 3 |
Ship By Date on Each Fulfillment Order
When splitting is active, each fulfillment order automatically receives a Ship By Date:
- Items sharing the same estimated ship date → that date becomes the Ship By Date.
- If a group contains items with mixed dates, the earliest date in that group is used.
- Items with no estimated ship date → the Ship By Date is set to today's date.
This Ship By Date represents the target deadline for shipping that fulfillment order. It is distinct from the actual Ship Date, which is recorded when the order is physically shipped.
How to Enable Date-Based Splitting
This feature is configured per channel:
- Go to Manage → Channels and open the relevant Sales or End-to-End channel.
- In the Auto Fulfillment section, set Split auto created fulfillment orders by... to Estimated Ship Date.
- Ensure your sales order items have Estimated Ship Date values populated (either from your order source or entered manually).
Note: This setting requires the Channel Types feature to be enabled on your account. Contact Luminous support if you do not see this option.
How Future Ship Dates Affect Pending Inventory
Pending inventory is the quantity Luminous reserves against your on-hand stock for open orders. The treatment of future-dated orders depends on your account configuration:
Standard Behavior (Back Orders not enabled)
All posted orders in an active status count toward pending inventory regardless of their ship date. A sales order for items due in 90 days will reduce your available stock today, just like an order due tomorrow.
Back Orders Behavior (when enabled for your account)
When the Back Orders feature is active, Luminous applies a date filter to pending calculations:
- Orders with a Ship By Date on or before today → counted as pending (inventory reserved now).
- Orders with a Ship By Date in the future → not counted as pending today.
- Orders with no Ship By Date → always counted as pending.
This means future-dated orders do not reduce your available inventory until their ship date arrives, which gives you a more accurate picture of inventory you can sell or allocate right now.
Warehouse Assignment for Future-Dated Orders
Regardless of ship date, warehouse assignment follows the same rules as any other order:
- Luminous walks your configured Fulfillment Priority List (or a product-specific list) from highest to lowest priority.
- The first warehouse with sufficient available stock is assigned.
- If your account has Proximity-Based Routing enabled, the priority list is dynamically reordered by distance to the ship-to address before stock is checked.
- If consolidation is enabled, Luminous first tries to fulfill all items from a single warehouse before splitting across locations.
Quick Reference
| Scenario | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Items have different Estimated Ship Dates, split-by-date enabled | Separate fulfillment orders created, each with its own Ship By Date |
| Items have no Estimated Ship Date, split-by-date enabled | Grouped into one fulfillment order; Ship By Date defaults to today |
| Future-dated order, Back Orders not enabled | Counts as pending inventory immediately |
| Future-dated order, Back Orders enabled | Does not count as pending until the Ship By Date arrives |
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Will my warehouse staff see different Ship By Dates on their fulfillment orders? Yes. Each fulfillment order created by the date-split will show the appropriate Ship By Date, making it easy to prioritize pick/pack work.
Q: What if an item's Estimated Ship Date changes after the fulfillment order is created? The fulfillment order's Ship By Date is set at creation time. If the source order date changes, you may need to manually update the fulfillment order or re-generate it.
Q: How do I know if Back Orders is enabled for my account? Contact Luminous support. They can confirm whether the feature is active and explain how it affects your specific pending inventory view.