Symptom

You notice one or more of the following:

  • A connected sales channel (such as TikTok Shop, Shopify, or an EDI trading partner) is advertising a quantity that is lower — or higher — than the Available Quantity you see in Luminous.
  • Your channel stopped accepting orders for a SKU even though Luminous shows stock.
  • A SKU's quantity on the channel has not changed in days, even after a purchase order was received.
  • You are unsure exactly how much Luminous is sending to the channel and why.

Why it happens

Luminous does not push your raw on-hand quantity to sales channels. Before every stock push, Luminous applies a multi-step calculation:

  1. Start with On-Hand at the warehouse group linked to the channel.
  2. Optionally add Incoming Stocks (on-order inventory from open POs), if that option is enabled for the channel.
  3. Subtract Pending — units reserved for open, unfulfilled orders.
  4. Optionally subtract Unfulfillable units (e.g. Amazon-reported unsellable stock), if Unfulfillable Stock Tracking is enabled.
  5. Subtract a Buffer — a flat-unit or percentage reserve you configure to hold back safety stock.
  6. Apply a Maximum Push Quantity cap, if one is set, which prevents advertising more than a chosen ceiling regardless of actual stock.
  7. Floor the result at zero — a negative result is never pushed to the channel (the channel sees 0, not a negative number).

Any one of these steps can cause the channel's number to differ from what you see in the Luminous Stocks Grid. Common specific causes include:

  • Push Inventory is turned off for that channel, so no quantity is being sent at all.
  • A buffer or cap is set higher than you realized, holding back units you expected to advertise.
  • Inflated Pending — orphaned fulfillment orders that were never closed are still reserving units, shrinking Available (and therefore what gets pushed) below the physical stock.
  • Stale On-Hand from an externally managed warehouse — Luminous pulls on-hand figures from external warehouses (such as TrackStar-connected locations) on a scheduled cycle. If that sync falls behind, Luminous's on-hand number is out of date.
  • Kit/bundle SKUs show zero — for kit products, Luminous calculates available quantity from component stock, but only if the Calculate Kit Quantities option is enabled on the warehouse group. Without it, kit SKUs always appear at zero to the channel.

How to resolve

Step 1 — Open the "Explain Stock Push" panel for the affected SKU

This is the fastest way to see exactly what Luminous is calculating and why.

  1. Go to Manage → Channels in the main navigation.
  2. Click the channel where the discrepancy appears (e.g. your TikTok or Shopify channel).
  3. Open the Product Mapping tab.
  4. Find the affected SKU in the grid.
  5. Click the row-action menu (three-dot icon) for that SKU and choose Explain Stock Push.

The panel that opens shows:

  • Whether Push Inventory is enabled for this channel.
  • The Warehouse Group and individual warehouses Luminous reads stock from.
  • A Stock Breakdown table with On-Hand, Pending, Incoming, Unfulfillable, and Available per warehouse.
  • A step-by-step Calculation showing the buffer type, effective buffer subtracted, any cap applied, and the Final Quantity to Push.
  • Last Push information: the quantity sent in the most recent push, the timestamp, sync status, and any remarks.

Compare the Final Quantity to Push shown in this panel against what the channel is currently advertising. If they match, the channel has received the right number — any remaining gap is on the channel side (delay, caching, or a channel-side setting). If they differ, continue below.

Step 2 — If Push Inventory is disabled

In the Explain Stock Push panel, if Push Inventory Enabled shows as Disabled:

  1. Return to the channel detail page and open Settings or Edit Channel.
  2. Locate the Push Inventory toggle and enable it.
  3. Save. Luminous will include this channel in the next scheduled stock push.

Step 3 — If a buffer or cap is higher than expected

If the Calculation section shows a buffer consuming units you did not intend to hold back:

  1. Still on the Product Mapping tab, find the SKU's row.
  2. Edit the Buffer Quantity, Buffer Type or Max Push Qty. cells directly in the grid (there is no Edit option in the row-action menu).
  3. Adjust the Buffer Quantity and/or Buffer Type (fixed units vs. percentage), or clear the Maximum Push Quantity cap.
  4. Save. The corrected quantity will go out in the next stock push.

Buffer settings follow a precedence chain: a per-SKU-per-channel override takes priority, then a channel-wide default, then a base product-level default. Check all three layers if the buffer source shown in the panel is not where you expected it to come from.

Step 4 — If On-Hand looks stale or Pending looks inflated

If the Stock Breakdown shows On-Hand that does not match your physical count, or Pending that seems too high:

  1. Go to Inventory → Stocks Grid.
  2. Filter by the warehouse group linked to the channel.
  3. Find the affected SKU(s).
  4. Select the row(s), open the Actions menu, and click Resync Pending.
  5. Wait a few minutes and click Refresh Table.

If On-Hand itself is stale (Luminous's count is lower than what the warehouse reports) and Resync Pending does not help, the scheduled sync from the external warehouse may be delayed. If the figures remain incorrect after 30 minutes, contact Luminous Support to re-trigger the warehouse stock pull.

If Pending remains inflated after a resync, look for orphaned fulfillment orders:

  1. Go to Operations → Fulfillment Orders and filter by the affected warehouse group with a status of Pending or Awaiting Shipment.
  2. Look for fulfillment orders tied to sales orders that are already Shipped or Cancelled.
  3. Cancel any orphaned fulfillment orders you have permission to cancel, then run Resync Pending again (Step 4 above).
  4. If you cannot cancel them yourself, collect their IDs and contact Luminous Support.

Step 5 — Confirm kit quantity calculation is enabled for the warehouse group.

  1. Go to Manage → Locations → Warehouse Groups, find the relevant group.
  2. Click the three-dot to Edit group.
  3. In the Group Options section, confirm the Combine Warehouse Group Inventory for KITs toggle is enabled.
  4. Confirm that Calculate Kit Quantities is enabled. If it is off, turn it on and save.
  5. This is the setting that determines whether kit availability is calculated across the whole warehouse group rather than a single warehouse.

Step 6 — Verify the channel has received the updated quantity

After making any correction, wait for the next stock push cycle (or trigger a manual push if your channel supports it from the Product Mapping grid), then check the channel directly. Some platforms have their own caching delay of a few minutes after Luminous sends the update.

When to contact support

Contact Luminous Support if:

  • The Explain Stock Push panel shows the correct Final Quantity to Push, but the channel is still showing a different number after 30+ minutes.
  • On-Hand in the Stock Breakdown has not updated to match the warehouse after more than 30 minutes and a Resync Pending did not correct it.
  • You see a Last Push sync status of Error or a remarks message you cannot interpret.
  • Pending remains inflated after a Resync Pending and you cannot identify or cancel the orphaned fulfillment orders.
  • The discrepancy affects a large number of SKUs simultaneously after an integration event.